Titoist Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 I have been running Ubuntu 8.10 for a while and now I have gone mobile with it... or so I thought. Ubuntu 8.10 gives me 30min of battery life while Vista Business SP1 gives me 1.5 hours. Whats up with that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Majesticmerc MVC Posted January 8, 2009 MVC Share Posted January 8, 2009 I'd also like to know something about this. Ubuntu's (and others?) power savings are ****. I had Ubuntu 8.10 installed on my laptop, and couldn't for the life of me dim the screen from 100%.... unless I plugged it in... sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titoist Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 My screen will automatically dim when the laptop is unplugged. However, my laptop battery life still sucks on Ubuntu even when the screen is dimmed to maximum and with low power settings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 try installing the laptop-mode package and see if it helps sudo apt-get install ubuntu-laptop-mode ... but I haven't found a Linux Distro yet that's as good with batteries as Windows is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rson451 Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 ... but I haven't found a Linux Distro yet that's as good with batteries as Windows is. Not to go too much off topic here, but my hp laptop with cpu scaling and a dim screen lasts just as long if not longer than it did when i bought it with windows installed two years ago. I'm still getting 1.75-2 hours with a 17" screen. IMO that's damn good. laptop-mode-tools or pm-utils is a good start for saving battery power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Tbh, it's just a feeling I have - I haven't done any recent comparisons. In fact, now that I think about it, It's been at least a couple of years since I've really used Windows on this laptop running on batteries. Since then I've almost exclusively been using Linux, and as this machine is getting a bit old now, I expect the battery isn't holding it's charge as well as it used to. That said, this isn't the first time I've read from dual-booters that Linux (more specifically Ubuntu) seems to consume more power than Windows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titoist Posted January 8, 2009 Author Share Posted January 8, 2009 Fish, what does this laptop "mode" actually do to Linux? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterC Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 Fish, what does this laptop "mode" actually do to Linux? It makes the hard drive spin down for longer periods of time, so it saves battery power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 It makes the hard drive spin down for longer periods of time, so it saves battery power. ... Although it has been said that it may have a detrimental effect on the lifetime of your drive due to it spinning-up and down more often than it would normally. Something you should at least consider, but I'd counter-argue that if your drive is spinning-up and down more often, then you probably don't really need laptop-mode-tools. It's more suitable if you tend to leave your laptop alone for longish periods just idling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterC Posted January 8, 2009 Share Posted January 8, 2009 ... Although it has been said that it may have a detrimental effect on the lifetime of your drive due to it spinning-up and down more often than it would normally. Something you should at least consider, but I'd counter-argue that if your drive is spinning-up and down more often, then you probably don't really need laptop-mode-tools. It's more suitable if you tend to leave your laptop alone for longish periods just idling. I think I remember reading somewhere that laptop hard drives are rated for more spin ups and spin downs than desktop hard drives are. So that should make it safe, if you're worried it's better to leave it idling like you said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elv13 Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 Linux battery life suck, thats all, manifacturer don't provide their software, bios manifacturer doesn't support linux, linux programmer are not expert in powersaving (but Intel does provide tools to do it, that's nice), most driver are written by the communoty so they are not well optimised due to the lack of time and access to hardware docs and last but not least, distribution does not care like Apple or Microsoft do about laptop. All these factor create the current situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I find the opposite. I get ~1.8X the battery life out of using linux than I do windows. I think though that is depends on your hardware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiagosilva29 Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I think though that is depends on your hardware. Would you post your hardware, please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MR_Candyman Posted January 9, 2009 Share Posted January 9, 2009 I found the same on both my laptops. They're at home (I'm not) I should be able to post what models they are later on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BilliShere Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 honestly this is driving me mad too! Now I have a brand new laptop but I havent installed hardy heron on it.. the laptop is an HP Dv4 with intel centrino core 2 duo technology btw... obviously i went for intrepid ibex since it is the latest... However, I find 2 hours of battery life *exact* when using intrepid ibex instead of vista.. guess how long the battery life is on vista? --> 4 Hours!! that is double what I get in ubuntu. honestly I am sick and tired of trying everything like powertop, laptop mode, laptop mode tools, hdparm, lesswatts.org, etc. I wanted to install arch linux on my laptop instead but I am not that much of a linux expert.. however i can follow instructions and stuff.. but seriously compared to ubuntu or the terminal...that arch linux installation process was sorta frightening. I gave up half way through the installation because i decided i love ubuntu more..and i would rather use that instead. well now..I am feeling pretty pathetic because I dont get to use linux, but rather vista... which honestly once you get use to linux, vista feels pretty static and slow. but wait there is hope.. screw intrepid ibex. Im gonna try hardy heron and see how much of an improvement i could possibly get. (but that would mean wireless problems...so crap..i forgot). Oh well.. i can try. Damn, anyone knows a distro with good battery life? where i can get atleast 4 hours of battery life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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