Linux Rescues Battery Life On Vista Notebooks From Dell

nerdyH writes "Dell is preparing to ship two enterprise-oriented Windows Vista notebooks with an interesting feature — a built-in TI OMAP (smartphone) processor that can power instantly into Linux. The 'Latitude ON' feature is said to offer 'multi-day' battery life, while letting users access email, the web, contacts, calendar, and so on, using the notebook's full-size screen and keyboard. I wonder if someday we'll just be able to plug our phones into our laptops, switching to the phone's processor when we need to save battery life? Or, maybe x86 will just get a lot more power-efficient. Speaking at MontaVista's Vision event today, OLPC spokesperson and longtime kernel hacker Deepak Saxena said the project is aiming for 10-20 hours of battery life during active use, on existing hardware (AMD Geode LX800 clocked at 500MHz, with 1GB of Flash and 256MB of RAM)."

Comments

eh

[Gewalt]

Well, I hope it's at least damn pretty, cause being the runner up to "the real os" isn't really something to be proud of. But if its flashy enough, then people will like it and will increase their opinion of linux. Then again... is it going to say its Linux?

Re:eh

[Gewalt]

My own kids' computers are cheap arse dell dimensions that were leftovers from a project many moons ago. Kids are 5 and 8. I set both machines up dual booting Ubuntu and XP. Taught the kids how to switch from one OS to the other. Both choose Ubuntu for most tasks but will use XP happily enough for that rare game some odd family member bought them that only runs on windows.
 
For the most part, I consider my kids will grow up considerably more OS agnostic than the average user, and I am hoping that will turn out to be a major advantage for them. (Oh, ya, and they also get to use my macbook pro occasionally too, but usually only when we are on the road, they like OSX the most but I'm a cheap bastard and cant afford to get them their own macbooks)

Re:eh

[PopeRatzo]

You guys need to slow down a bit. I don't know what kind of job requires you to access your email within 5 seconds, but I get a stomach ache just thinking about it.

Seriously, nobody wants to wait two minutes or even one minute. But I have to chuckle when I think of any apple laptop user that "needs" his laptop to boot in 5 seconds. By the time he stirs his soy latte, brings out his iPhone ostentatiously, and makes sure someone's noticed the logo on the lid, that's 15 seconds right there.

Re:eh

[PopeRatzo]

Which OS does your Aunt Millie use when she wants to play Crysis Warhead?

Re:eh

[cayenne8]

"I actually saw a guy in Starbucks time his MacBook on boot. Went something like this:

"Uno, Dos, Tres, Catorce!"

I don't get it.....1, 2, 3, 14 ??

So, you're saying people in Starbucks don't know how to count in any language?

I suppose that explains how they get away with selling coffee at those prices.....

Looks like we're going back to 1981...

[Viol8]

... when IBM PCs had BASIC in ROM which you could start instantly and (in theory) do some sort of work with without booting DOS. No bad thing IMO.

I don't think it's the Linux

[Sockatume]

Going out on a limb here, but I suspect the use of a mobile phone processor contributed a teeny bit more to the improved battery life than the Linux. (FWIW, I don't see any statistically significant battery life difference between Xubuntu and Vista Business on my own machine, but that's another story.)

Re:I don't think it's the Linux

[Gewalt]

You ever try to get windows vista running on a AMD Geode LX800? You are correct in saying that its the processor saving the power, not the OS, but without the OS, the processor wouldn't be an option.

10 to 20 hours is easy...

[squoozer]

... you just need a very very big battery. Rather than quoting run time on battery we should probably start reporting the average power draw of the system idle and under full load.

Re:For some people this may be enough

[pandrijeczko]

I lost one user from Kubuntu to XP Cracked Edition because she _needed_ to read those forwards that her friends with boring jobs send her.

But presumably she didn't need it enough to go buy a proper licensed copy of XP?

I don't intend bleating on about piracy and I really don't want to play the Linux zealot here, but I do wish people would compare "like for like". Far too many people seem to forget that XP and MS Office are commercial products that they *should* be paying for whereas Open Office and Linux are obtainable freely.

If it was impossible to run cracked copies of Windows, MS Office and other Windows software and everyone had to pay for proper licenses, I'm sure a lot more people would take the trouble to actually try free software, rather than staying in a comfort zone and just assuming it cannot do what they need it to.

As another poster has already said, I've never seen a PPT that I couldn't import in Open Office. Sure, I don't use all of Powerpoint's features but, in my experience, the compatibility seems quite good.