Why is Gutsy so hungry for power?
 

I have read a number of articles in which the power
consumption of various OSs running on a standard PC or
laptop are compared (eg
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=880&num=2
). Sad to say Ubuntu generally does poorly in
comparison with XP as well as other linux desktops. I
have been unable to find out why it is so hungry for
power, but the sooner it is sorted, or tools provided
to allow the average user to tweak their system to
reduce the wattage the better.

As well as issues with laptop battery life
(particularly with Gutsy see
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=600810 ), the
prevailing interest in green computing as well as the
general open source ethos means Ubuntu is really
missing a trick if this is not improved. It will not
be too long before the wolves are at the door.

Does anyone know why Gutsy uses more power than Feisty
and how consumption can be reduced?


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Why is Gutsy so hungry for power?
 

On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 08:28:29AM -0800, John Leonard wrote:
> I have read a number of articles in which the power
> consumption of various OSs running on a standard PC or
> laptop are compared (eg
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=880&num=2

The correct URL is
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=880&num=2

> ). Sad to say Ubuntu generally does poorly in
> comparison with XP as well as other linux desktops. I
> have been unable to find out why it is so hungry for
> power, but the sooner it is sorted, or tools provided
> to allow the average user to tweak their system to
> reduce the wattage the better.

You know about powertop, right? http://www.lesswatts.org is also
instructive.

> As well as issues with laptop battery life
> (particularly with Gutsy see
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=600810 ), the
> prevailing interest in green computing as well as the
> general open source ethos means Ubuntu is really
> missing a trick if this is not improved. It will not
> be too long before the wolves are at the door.
>
> Does anyone know why Gutsy uses more power than Feisty
> and how consumption can be reduced?

I think the correct question to ask would be "why Gutsy uses more power
than Feisty on that particular hardware", and I would like to know the
answer as well.

Marius Gedminas
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Why is Gutsy so hungry for power?
 

On Sat, 2008-01-05 at 21:21 +0200, Marius Gedminas wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 08:28:29AM -0800, John Leonard wrote:
> > I have read a number of articles in which the power
> > consumption of various OSs running on a standard PC or
> > laptop are compared (eg
> > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item=880&num=2
>
> The correct URL is
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=880&num=2
>
> > ). Sad to say Ubuntu generally does poorly in
> > comparison with XP as well as other linux desktops. I
> > have been unable to find out why it is so hungry for
> > power, but the sooner it is sorted, or tools provided
> > to allow the average user to tweak their system to
> > reduce the wattage the better.
>
> You know about powertop, right? http://www.lesswatts.org is also
> instructive.
>
> > As well as issues with laptop battery life
> > (particularly with Gutsy see
> > http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=600810 ), the
> > prevailing interest in green computing as well as the
> > general open source ethos means Ubuntu is really
> > missing a trick if this is not improved. It will not
> > be too long before the wolves are at the door.
> >
> > Does anyone know why Gutsy uses more power than Feisty
> > and how consumption can be reduced?
>
> I think the correct question to ask would be "why Gutsy uses more power
> than Feisty on that particular hardware", and I would like to know the
> answer as well.
>
> Marius Gedminas

actually, i noticed that the reason ubuntu is running sluggish on your
machine is that your devices are using programs that are slowing down
your machine. I ran powertop on my machine and noticed that my video
drivers were taking up 50%.

But ubuntu will run faster then xp (most of the time). Besides, there
are alot of optional programs that come with ubuntu that take up lots of
resources. On my machine, compiz tends to do that and i end up having to
disable it in order to play any of my games.

You might try disabling any software thats taking up too much resources
(use the system monitor to see whats taking up all the resources)

--cj


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Why is Gutsy so hungry for power?
 

Marius Gedminas wrote:
>> ). Sad to say Ubuntu generally does poorly in
>> comparison with XP as well as other linux desktops. I
>> have been unable to find out why it is so hungry for
>> power, but the sooner it is sorted, or tools provided
>> to allow the average user to tweak their system to
>> reduce the wattage the better.
>
> You know about powertop, right?

wow. that's an awesome tool. never heard of it before you mentioned it
but i am sure glad you did. thanks marius.

-d


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Why is Gutsy so hungry for power?
 

On 05/01/2008, Marius Gedminas <marius@pov.lt> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 08:28:29AM -0800, John Leonard wrote:
> > Does anyone know why Gutsy uses more power than Feisty
> > and how consumption can be reduced?
>
> I think the correct question to ask would be "why Gutsy uses more power
> than Feisty on that particular hardware", and I would like to know the
> answer as well.

There are also lots of users discovering that Vista uses a lot more
battery power than XP. The main reason for this - and it may also
apply to 7.10 - is that Vista's UI uses a machine's 3D graphics
accelerator for display compositing. XP does not. Similarly, 7.10 has
Compiz on by default, which again uses 3D to do window composition.
7.04 has this as an optional feature which much be manually enabled.

A 2D GUI does not use the 3D part of a graphics accelerator at all.
Mobile graphics chips in particular are often designed so that large
parts of the graphics subsystem are not used at all when in 2D mode.
Whereas a modern graphics subsystem may have 256MB of video RAM or
more - up to 3 or 4 times that - which is all used in rendering 3D, a
simply 1280*1024 desktop uses a tiny fraction of that for the
framebuffer:
1280 * 1024 pixels = 1,310,720 pixels
1310720 * 3 bytes per pixel for 24 million colours = 3,932,160 bytes
3932160 / 1024 = 3,840 kB
3840 / 1024 = 3.75 MB

Under 4MB of RAM for a megapixel display. Compare this to a modern
very low-end 128MB graphics card. That's 124MB of video RAM wasted
when in 2D mode. All that RAM takes power.


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