Ubuntu 10.04 Is More Power Hungry Than Windows 7

[dino99]

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_windows_part2&num=1

[themusicalduck]

I'm not surprised by this unfortunately :( My Aspire One with Ubuntu NBR on has terrible battery life.

[Mr. Picklesworth]

Well, I knew and expected this. (I wonder if anyone didn't?…)

Would be nice if there was more interest in the field, but for some reason there seems to be very little.

[Linuxforall]

Its CPU specific, with the Think pad the story changed, my dual core Intel's on the Vaio runs longer on Ubuntu than on Vista, have to give Win7 a try to see if its any better.

[doas777]

so since Win7 is modular for netbooks, and ubuntu has instead choosed to release the netbook remix, wouldn't a better comparision for netbooks be win7 vs UNR?

[Penguin Guy]

This is mainly because hardware manufacturers take more time writing drivers for Windows than Linux, and most bought laptops come with Windows already setup to use minimum battery life.

[LowSky]

UNR is actually heavier than vanilla Ubuntu.

[TechnoFou]

They didn't check with Xubuntu :O !!! WAYYY better, and faster !

[doas777]

UNR is actually heavier than vanilla Ubuntu.
really? thats a failed design goal...

[cariboo]

I beg to differ this the result of free - on my desktop:


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2009 1982 26 0 78 1116
-/+ buffers/cache: 787 1221
Swap: 1906 148 1758


and my netbook:


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 994 467 526 0 8 96
-/+ buffers/cache: 363 630
Swap: 1906 110 1796


Note: I just closed a vbox session, on my desktop, but as you can see it's still using 787Mb ram

[doas777]

I beg to differ this the result of free - on my desktop:


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2009 1982 26 0 78 1116
-/+ buffers/cache: 787 1221
Swap: 1906 148 1758
and my netbook:


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 994 467 526 0 8 96
-/+ buffers/cache: 363 630
Swap: 1906 110 1796
Note: I just closed a vbox session, on my desktop, but as you can see it's still using 787Mb ram


thats good to know. I had though that Lowsky was talking about power consumption, but your right, her exact meaning remains unclear.

[retro89]

I have a Compaq-CQ-50 laptop with amd dual core that usually got around 2 hours or so running Vista. After reading this article, I decided I would do a test to see if this were true. I got 1 and 52 minutes running 10.04 since I dont have Vista or windows 7 I could not really compared but I know with Vista I was lucky to get 2 hours so I think it just depends on the hardware and the batteries. I dont believe that this effects my pc anymore than Vista did but I wonder how much more windows 7 would get if any.

[FoxMcCloudwp]

install gentoo

[Mr. Picklesworth]

They didn't check with Xubuntu :O !!! WAYYY better, and faster !

install gentoo

Like boot time, the solution to power management is not a quantitative thing.

It takes some actual dedicated engineering focus to come up with a good approach. A system could scale resource usage for the user's needs based on the type of battery, heat generated by hardware components (and how they affect each other), and all sorts of other variables.

One example of power management tech in action is Nokia's iphb used in the Maemo platform, which helps apps synchronize network usage. Also remember that Windows is not easier on power because it is lightweight ;)

[tom66]

As an electronics geek/engineer, I'd be sceptical of the measuring method. It is clear Ubuntu is consuming more power, but the power consumption and efficiency of any SMPS (laptop charger, computer power supply...) is not linear, so a small change in output current can distort the power consumption significantly. Efficiency varies across the power spectrum. So at low power consumption, efficiency might be 85%, but at higher consumption, it might be only 80%, or it might be 90%. Also those cheap measurement devices only take into account a resistive load, that is a power factor of 1 or very close; most supplies only have a power factor of 0.85-0.99.

Really, they should have used a current clamp (*not* a current shunt as this drops lots of volts) on the output going from the power supply. This allows current measurement up to 100's of amps and is fairly accurate (typically ±3%); multiply by the voltage to get watts.

/rant

I have too noticed power consumption on Ubuntu 10.04 is more than Vista. This is because I am now using radeonhd which does not have the best power saving (preliminary features so far). But in Ubuntu 9.04 using fglrx battery life was actually 15 minutes more than Vista (about 2:45 vs. 2:30).

[del_diablo]

Its CPU specific, with the Think pad the story changed, my dual core Intel's on the Vaio runs longer on Ubuntu than on Vista, have to give Win7 a try to see if its any better.

Its a lot more.
Something quite noticeable is when a manufacture fixes major hardware problems in the WINDOWS drivers instead of bothering to fix the BIOS....
And the list goes on: Windows spesific hacks to fix issues instead of actually fixing them...........
Or even better: Driver forcing a device to increase the fan speed and minimal decrease in voltage instead of fixing the cooling device.........

On good laptops you would see the opposite case, since the Linux kernel tends to have proper power save support.

[chappajar]

install gentoo

This sounds interesting. Details please?

I need a long battery life on my netbook, but don't want to use Windows.
I'd like to use one of the bigger Linux distros (Debian, RH, Suse, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Gentoo, etc) but don't know which will give lower power consumption, or why.

[witeshark17]

It's just another windows slanted article.

[john_spiral]

It's just another windows slanted article.

not slanted, just the facts.

not good for Ubuntu adoption

[witeshark17]

Such facts don't mention how much power windows wastes with its bloat and extra security software overhead.

[brufferman]

not slanted, just the facts.

not good for Ubuntu adoption

I can also factually say that Ubuntu 10.04 is sucking allot more power than win 7
I'm not a fan of windows at all, but I am reliant on a limited power source and the fact is I get much more uptime with win 7 before my battery warning buzzer goes off. I mean hours more uptime and the heat from the computer is far less.

I think though it is recent problem for ubuntu, I think it was better, i think 9.1 was better for this, but have not tried to roll back yet.

The other problem is the frequency scaling with the latest update. The laptop is stuck on 600mhz and can't be scaled up the the full 1.6ghz - this affects performance hugely, but the heat problem goes away.
I asume there is a guy looking in to this - I am no expert :)

The computer I am using is a dell precision M60 with a 1.6ghz centrino chip.

[czr114]

Such facts don't mention how much power windows wastes with its bloat and extra security software overhead.

Much of that is a problem with how people use or customize Windows, not with the OS itself.

Issues of power consumption do need to be taken seriously, and should lead us to question whether development effort is being properly directed towards the current creation of heavier UIs, more CPU-hogging visual effects and artwork, meatier applications, and more things running in the background.

Every development hour has an opportunity cost.

If that opportunity cost is coming at the expense of not producing more efficient code, better hardware acceleration, and less resource utilization, then an open and transparent discussion needs to be held concerning whether a realignment is appropriate.

With the constant march forward in CPU architecture, we also should be having a discussion of how Ubuntu's ease of updating and package management can be combined with a central build system producing CPU-specific builds for the most resource-intensive applications on the most popular new chips. I don't see it as being unreasonable to think that, for example, a branch for the latest Intel core chips could serve as a more efficient alternative to generic x64 code.

The effects of a few percent here and there, in each of several efforts, could, in aggregate, pay huge dividends for the install base, both in extended battery life on mobile platforms, reduced power consumption across all platforms, and extension of the useful life of hardware.

[RiceMonster]

install gentoo

The amount of resources you save will be trumped by the amount of time you lose.

[NightwishFan]

I like the new avatar RM.

Try a utility such as powertop to show some suggestions on where you can save power. My laptop gets around 3hrs nearly idle I can get that to 5 after using powertop. (Has to be done each time you are on battery unless you do the tweaks permanently yourself. Your mileage may vary.

I find that it is a driver issue or lack of sane defaults with power management. Audio and usb devices not suspending, too many disk wakeups, or the kernel poking around for no reason. With a hard disk, enabling laptop mode tools will give the biggest single boost in power. I think it lowers total disk life though. (Not sure by how much).

I think a lot testing needs to be done to learn what tweaks we can enable safely by default. Or find more scripts to check when we can enable them at runtime.

[Khakilang]

Its just 1 minor negative point for Ubuntu which can be tweak to save power. To me I am looking overall at the positive point of using Ubuntu. Like virus free, able to use older computer, able to use software for free, performance, speed and the list goes on and on. I am not a notebook user but I am sure the problem can be solve with some tweak on the system.

[Ichtyandr]

Are they serious? How can they make such general statements?

This is subjective, but my Asus 1005p netbook (1.6 Atom, 1 gb ram) shipped with Windows 7 by default, what a nightmarish idea is that! Not only it took ages to load anything including itself, its desktop was completely space-robbing, not to mention that I was scared to make another click that would easily hang the system. Thats without any programs that I usually use.

UNR is perhaps not a good design idea, but using usual gnome works really well, and power consumption is awesome, and I usually run firefox, openoffice, skype and couple of other programs at the same time. Also this jupiter things helps alot (to turn off bluetooth etc when I do not use em). And xubuntu can make it even snappier, but look if I want I can make it really minimal and work with openbox only eg just pure gnome makes the most usable desktop I've ever had.

[cra1g321]

"Ubuntu 10.04 Is More Power Hungry Than Windows 7"

Something which is more powerful, will need more power ;)