Would Linux utilise less electricity than Windows?

Hemps

Hemps

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Off topic but Would Linux utilise less electricity than Windows?

I know on a macbook OS X gets 9hrs battery life whereas when Windows is installed as main OS it drops to 4-5hrs.
 
Hemps said:
Off topic but Would Linux utilise less electricity than Windows?

I know on a macbook OS X gets 9hrs battery life whereas when Windows is installed as main OS it drops to 4-5hrs.
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It might, the reason why OSX gets a good battery life is it is optimised for the hardware.
Battery life IMO on Linux is a hit and miss affair.
 
There are too many variables to really say one way or the other. If you're thinking of a default Windows install from the manufacturer (loaded with their crapware), practically anything will be more efficient. A default Linux deskop install vs a default Windows install (from MS, rather than the manufacturer), are probably going to give you very similar performance, assuming equal hardware support.

If you want to tinker with power usage in Linux, check out powertop.
 
You could try downclocking. I used to do it on my Pentium 4. Part of energy consumption is lost in heat generated. My phone is downclocked to save battery life and is still usable.

Modern chips can adjust their own speeds. Using the pc power management tool can control this. My mint installs use less ram than windows. That's all I've noticed.
 
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Yes. Linux is a kernel, on its own it would use less power than Windows, since its a full-blows OS.

Generally, linux and windows use the same power. Power consumption has more to do with what you do rather than where. I.e. gaming takes more power than writing an essay in Word.
 
Reason i ask is I'm getting adsl at home soon and want to use a Win 7 Acer 5630 Dual Core laptop 65W as downloading machine.

Also have PI device, running Rasbian with external hdd connected that I suppose i could use for Usenet lying around.
 
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Hemps said:
Reason i ask is I'm getting adsl at home soon and want to use a Win 7 Acer 5630 Dual Core laptop 65W as downloading machine.
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Perfect to use as a download machine.

Download Ubuntu 14.10 and VLC from the Ubuntu Software Centre, then you don't have to copy the downloaded files to a Windows machine.
 
Phoronix sometimes does power usage comparisons between Linux and other OS'. It seems to depend a lot on the specific kernel which is being used.
 
No, it uses more power.

Look at battery tests done on laptops using Windows and Linux. Linux laptops always run out of power sooner. It is just down to optimization - hardware manufacturers provide better support to Windows, which means that their drivers are better. Linux does not receive good support, so hardware drivers for Linux are poorly optimized.
 
Ancalagon said:
No, it uses more power.

Look at battery tests done on laptops using Windows and Linux. Linux laptops always run out of power sooner. It is just down to optimization - hardware manufacturers provide better support to Windows, which means that their drivers are better. Linux does not receive good support, so hardware drivers for Linux are poorly optimized.
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The thing is you have to manually tweak the power settings in linux for your device, if you get it right you can have the same or longer battery time in linux. It takes a lot of fiddling & time though.

A good start is a lightweight distro (not something that has a full blown DE that eats 15% cpu just to run the OS) and then start tweaking the power settings. My laptop used for downloading runs manjaro pekwm edition which is very light and snot fast.
 
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ponder said:
The thing is you have to manually tweak the power settings in linux for your device, if you get it right you can have the same or longer battery time in linux. It takes a lot of fiddling & time though.

A good start is a lightweight distro (not something that has a full blown DE that eats 15% cpu just to run the OS) and then start tweaking the power settings. My laptop used for downloading runs manjaro pekwm edition which is very light and snot fast.
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I really want to get one of those Intel NUC mini pcs.
 
kingrob said:
We all know what saps the power out of a laptop - the display.

I would suggest that you dim the display, then the laptop will last much much longer.
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If it's acting as a download box then there is no need to have the display on at all, mine switches off after 10mins of no keyboard/mouse input via DPMS, move the mouse or hit a key and the display switches back on. Other things you can do is to turn of wifi, bluetooth etc if using a wired connection.
 
Another thing you can do is to get a fairly decent motherboard with oodles of RAM, and use virtualization to run more than one OS.

Cuts out physical machines. Less power use.
 
I have seen this in practice on my Dell with Windoze 8 and Mint alongside in dual-boot. Dell shipped the laptop with endless power management options that simply do not exist in Linux yet. Therefore, battery life on Windows have always been better than in Linux. On Linux, I make sure that I power down the CPU to Powersave or Ondemand, depending of my workload.

Even though even my other old laptop with its AMD Athlon 64 800Mhz does a very similar Linux install and application as home office workstation with aplomb, its power consumption is much higher than expected. I see Linux as a smart, slender and very strong athlete with an immense thirst.

Android....which is derived from Linux.......needed bigger batteries than WP or iPhone, so they needed to make bigger screens! They ended up in this death spiral as now they needed stronger GPU's and CPU's, which needed yet more battery power so the screens grew. this is because people will more easily buy a larger screen device than one with a thicker body. It has to be thin and sleek.

The entire industry, not wanting to be left behind, also (without the real need to) jumped on the bandwagon and a flurry of large-screen WP and iPhone devices entered the fray. All because of Android using more power to be doing the same thing.

Linux really need serious development work in this area. I run Mint 17.1 Rebecca 64 Cinnamon on my Ivy Bridge 2.5Ghz i5 Macbook Pro and HD4000 graphics. The CPU's cores hover at an average of no more than 15% but down to a third or even a fifth of that mostly. RAM is 4GB but I never even got to use 2GB. Highest use thus far was 1.4GB! I am not sure what the need for 16GB on a Linux box would be, referring to the average home & office application.
 
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