Ubuntu's Power Consumption Tested 330
RedDragon writes "Ubuntu 7.10 is due out on Thursday, October 18, and in addition to desktop 3D effects, GNOME 2.20, and other features is the use of the Linux 2.6.22 kernel with the tick-less (CONFIG_NO_HZ) kernel feature. But does this mean enhanced power savings when compared to past Ubuntu releases? Phoronix tested Ubuntu power consumption looking back 2-1/2 years at the six Ubuntu releases from Ubuntu 5.04 to the yet-to-be-released Ubuntu 7.10. Testing was done when the system was idling and then under load, and when the Lenovo notebook was powered via the battery and then again with the AC adapter. The Pentium M CPU temperature was also monitored. While Ubuntu 7.10 does include the tick-less kernel feature, more daemons and processes running by default on these modern Ubuntu releases is actually causing an increase in power consumption."
Is this supposed to be a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean - Vista will use more power than Windows XP, OS X will use more power than Mac OS 9.
Or is there a fundamental flaw in my logic that I'm missing here?
Other OSes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, the question is: Do the improvements offset the additional features.
The answer is: Yes, to a degree. 7.10beta runs cooler and more efficiently than 7.04
So the next question is: How many of the new features can you shut off because you do not need them and how much of a power savings will you see then?
Re:Other OSes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does Ubuntu benchmark this kind of thing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well duh! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ya think?
I just install OpenSuse 10.3 on a tower type and a laptop.
The first thing I do is go in and disable a whole slew of bullshit that's enabled by default.
I LOVE Linux but the trend lately has been to BLOAT it up like a new eMachine that's preloaded with 40gigs of bullshit.
What ever happened to minimal? When I installed Suse 9.3 on my Athlon 64 w/1g ram, it ran like a cat with it's ass on fire.
SAME hardware with OpenSuse 10.2 was abysmal. It was sooooo bad that I was just about to give up on it then 10.3 came out.
It's a slight improvement but, damn! They are developing all the new distros with the assumption that everyone is going to run out and buy all new shit. Shades of M$, dare I say??
For the longest time Linux captured and held my heart because it would run so fast on the oldest, worst case hardware.
No more. Wanna run the latest distro? Better put some $$$ back for all new hardware...
Bloat = power drain.
How about getting back to basics and quit focusing on the bling-bling. Linux is NOT windows and it never should be. Quit trying to make it look and act like windows. Quit trying to make it run windows crap. Be happy that it's not windows. I do not want windows compatibility. At all. Ever.
Kill the bloat and pork and watch power consumption go down. Not to mention the old PC's being tossed out into the environment.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is this supposed to be a surprise? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well duh! (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to run SuSE 9.1 and was running it fine for 3 years or so... then came time to try and upgrade to a newer version. Of course this is right around the time that Novell bought SUSE and changed it up a bit. So an easy upgrade was indeed not possible. I decided to try out a few distributions but had a lot of problems finding one that would work fast and I ended up on Gentoo. I know, I know, compile time was a pain in the ass... I decided to go down the XFCE route and use all of the lighter-weight GTK programs... I think I only have one QT program that I actually use installed and it only depends on QT, nothing else.
Xubuntu ran O.K... but not anywhere near as nice as Gentoo is. I think it's not the fact that it was compiled and optimized... I beleive it's because during installation I learned more as I set it up. And I knew what I wanted/needed to run the system. Whereas Ubuntu makes a lot of choices for you, mostly in system services, etc. I have a total of 29 items that start up when I boot. I think only 10-15 of them are actually daemons. Right now I am using 215MB or so of my 1GB of RAM... this is with Firefox (4 tabs), Thunderbird w/Lightning, aMSN, Terminal, Mousepad and a whole slew of items on my panel.
If you want lightweight, make sure you know exactly what is going on your system. And use something like XFCE or Fluxbox versus KDE or Gnome.
Just my two cents.
blame Beagle for that (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Other OSes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Gonna check out the new 7.10 and see if I can get nearer to what windows can give me.
30 Watts? WTF? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Snazzy effects (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DRM effects. Re:Snazzy effects (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is this supposed to be a surprise? (Score:2, Interesting)
About 25-plus years ago, I had a computer- it was called an IBM 3090, and it filled the entire basement of a commercial building. I was its system programmer.
It used a LOT of power- enough to light up a suburban block of houses. And it cost close to a million dollars, and that's without the air-conditioning.
I am now typing this reply to you on my small desktop-
It has more than ONE HUNDRED times as much disk capacity as that old computer, about 20 times its RAM (heck just my video card has more RAM than that old computer), and clock speed... well, let's just say my desktop is... umm, somewhat faster.
But as of yet, I have no thick 440 volt power cables running into my den, and no water-cooled giant air-conditioners humming on my roof.
Actually, unlike the old mainframe, my PC doesn't need to be water cooled. What a relief!
(But I understand this relief may be short-lived)
So do you still think a new Windows (or Linux) system sucks more power than an old IBM deskt..., I mean Factory-top?
(no jokes about "vista sucks", please)
Re:Is this supposed to be a surprise? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is this supposed to be a surprise? (Score:3, Interesting)
HPET isn't essential for the tickless kernel, not at all. I run tickless on several machines which don't have HPET. I wouldn't swear that their test system was a system with working HPET, for example.
What HPET is nice for is Higher Precision timer interrupts; what do you think the "HP" stands for?
Re:Please read Gutmann's work yourself (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the list of 'key quotes', Gutmann fails to address any of the points that Ou actually raised, instead claiming he was working from an outdated edition of his presentation. This is irrelevant as he well knows - he needs to address why he's uses blog postings from Karel Donk and others, as a basis to make horrendously inaccurate claims about the DRM technology. A large proportion of the claims he's made have been proven false by Ou and others, but Gutmann is more prepared to attack Ou's method of arguing his points than the actual points themselves.
I have no qualms about Gutmann arguing against DRM from a moral/ethical standpoint, if he so wishes. However, from a technical standpoint his points are almost totally baseless.