Re: Why does the laptop battery last longer with Windows than with Debian?
On Sat, 2 May 2009 15:45:17 +0200
Kaixi Luo <kaixiluo@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm a new Linux user (currently using Debian 5 testing) and I've noticed
> that the battery of my laptop used to last much longer with Windows Vista (4
> hours) than with Debian (2.5 hours). How's that possible?I mean, Debian
> uses much less RAM (250 MB) than Vista (1 GB).
>
> Also, is there anything I can do to improve my laptop battery life?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kaixi
Some things you can improve on, such as installing laptopmode (and possibly
configuring it more or less aggresively) and using gnome-power-manager of
similar to automatically control screen brightness when disconnected and
possibly cpu throttling.
Other things are currently hard to control and appart for some tweaks that are
mostly proof of concept at the moment and will require waiting. These include
power saving on the GPU (graphics card) which needs support from the driver
writers, mostly nvidia/ati/intel. Some are better than others. Another issue is
turning off hardware such as wireless antena, bluetooth, usb, sata power
saving, etc. Some of this you can do manually either by tweaking laptop mode,
or try running powertop in a console and see what it sugests. One of the main
things is not controllable yet under linux and that is turning off pci power.
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