__/ [ Larry Qualig ] on Saturday 03 June 2006 06:36 \__
>
> Jim wrote:
>> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> > __/ [ Jim ] on Friday 02 June 2006 19:19 \__
>> >
>> >
>> >>Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>Vista beta sucks up battery juice
>> >>>
>> >>>,----[ Quote ]
>> >>>| ...Even so, any lowering in battery life is a blow to the rest of the
>> >>>| PC industry. Manufacturers have found it a struggle to boost the
>> >>>| battery life of notebook computers, even as they've made easy
>> >>>| advances in other areas, such as disk space and processor
>> >>>| performance.
>> >>>|
>> >>>| "Just when they thought they were getting closer, now they are
>> >>>| further away," Brookwood said. Several hardware makers contacted by
>> >>>| CNET News.com declined to comment.
>> >>>|
>> >>>| Microsoft acknowledged that Vista's more intense graphics do cause a
>> >>>| hit to battery life.
>> >>>`----
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >
>> >
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6079215.html?part=rss&tag=6079215&subj=news
>> >
>> >>>Similar problems in Windows mobile, by the way. More reasons to choose
>> >>>something lighter (as in "engineered properly to work most
>> >>>efficiently").
>> >>
>> >>ya mean like gentoo or a heavily customised Debian install? :)
>> >
>> >
>> > The key word is *customised*. By default, Vista does file indexing in
>> > the background and I bet that few people will find the 'driver's seat
>> > preset position' that suits their hardware.
>> >
>> > All that said, Windows has always been a resource hog. XP is a notorious
>> > resource pig and Vista is the outcome of just months of extending XP (or
>> > Server). That new stuff are modules like Aero mounted atop it, slurping
>> > away even *more* battery juice and slowing down the O/S in general.
>> >
>> > The concept of modularity, which was all along largely ignored, is
>> > biting MS in the rear and costing people money (battery
>> > extenders)/battery lifetime.
>> >
>> > Best wishes,
>> >
>> > Roy
>> >
>>
>> I know that feeling. XPSP2 on this Dell with two spanking brand new
>> high-capacity batteries runs a little over three and a half hours. SuSE
>> 9.3 w/KDE (same hardware)? FIFTEEN HOURS.
>
>
> Sorry but I don't believe that one bit. FIFTEEN hours on SuSE... not a
> chance. Do you have an URL **ANYWHERE** that comes even close to
> substantiating that claim? Of course not. I posted a link about a month
> ago from a Linux advocate who ran tests (using an automated script to
> load web-pages) that showed that battery life was nearly identical
> between the XP and Linux. Actually XP was about 3-5% longer but the
> numbers were close enough to be identical.
>
> Fifteen hours is simply unrealistic. I don't care if you simply leave a
> laptop powered up and do absolutely **nothing** at all with it. You
> simply won't get 15 hours of battery life.
>
> My year old Dell can dual-boot into SuSE and XP and battery life is
> identical from my experience. There is absolutely no way in hell that
> SuSE gives me 5X the battery life of XP. Sorry Jim.. but that claim is
> pure BS.
I agree that it sounds rather ludicrous. The brightness of screen eats up
a large proportion of the power, which makes this statement unrealistic.
As for some personal observations, the only visible widgets on my
dual-head are kgpg and system monitor. Unless I do something particular,
the CPU usage meter indicates 98% idleness (X consumes just over 1%). Mind
you, the music player does not bother the CPU. This leads me to suspecting
that Windows does a lot of unnecessary 'stuff' in the background. It
always keeps itself busy with *something*, which is a characteristic that
I noticed long ago and even mentioned in COLA on several occasions.
To use another example, I can use my Palm PDA with an external keyboard
for about half a day. I urge you to seek similar reports that involve
Windows Mobile devices. Palm OS does not bother with CPU-intensive tasks
(unless you use third-party addons), whereas with WinCE, all you do is sit
there waiting for bells and whistles on a brightly lit screen, which eat
up your battery and infrequently entertain your peers (if anybody is
watching at all).
Windows Mobile devices tend to require better hardware, which as usual,
leads to greater cost, size, weight, and battery consumption. Choose your
poison then. I frequently hear about people who ditch Windows Mobile and
come to Palm. They are pragmatic people. Laptop and desktop user are soon
to follow. And Palm has moved to Linux by the way... Nokia and Motorola
are heading in this direction as well.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
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