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Ubuntu's Power Consumption Tested

Posted by kdawson on from the no-lyme-disease dept.

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."

3 of 330 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Snazzy effects by F-3582 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Rest assured, it takes you four mouse-clicks to disable them. Every tried that under Vista?

  2. Re: I can believe that by Dolda2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't know what it is there for, but according to this description, it doesn't sound like it is something that a vanilla, desktop installation would want on there. That's not the trackerd you're looking for, though (for future record: You may want to try dpkg -S /usr/bin/trackerd, followed by dpkg -s $PACKAGENAME to find out what it is). Trackerd in the latest Ubuntu is a desktop search thingie, similar to Spotlight or whatever the Vista thing is called. I'd imagine that the load you were seing after about ½-1 hour of use was that it was still busy indexing your preexisting files. Once it gets past that, it gets quite calm in my admittedly limited experience.

    The approach to background processes should be the KISS. On a vanilla desktop installation, only the barest set of such thing should be on there. If that's what you want, maybe you shouldn't be using Ubuntu?
  3. Re:Is this supposed to be a surprise? by SuperQ · · Score: 5, Informative

    Does this answer your question?

    $ grep HPET /boot/config-2.6.22-14-generic
    CONFIG_HPET=y
    CONFIG_HPET_MMAP=y
    # CONFIG_HPET_RTC_IRQ is not set
    CONFIG_HPET_TIMER=y
    CONFIG_HPET_EMULATE_RTC=y

    $ dmesg | grep hpet
    [ 8.328261] hpet0: at MMIO 0xfed00000, IRQs 2, 8, 0
    [ 8.328266] hpet0: 3 64-bit timers, 14318180 Hz
    [ 0.744000] Time: hpet clocksource has been installed.