Ubuntu and the Heebijeebies of Power Consumption

I saw this article on /. today: Ubuntu’s Power Consumption Tested. It links to this article from Phoronix that details the test results of Ubuntu’s power consumption on a Lenovo ThinkPad R52 using the past five Ubuntu releases plus the beta of the next version, 7.10 – i.e., every version from 5.04, Hoary Hedgehog, to Gutsy Gibbon, due out Thursday.

As I noted the other day, I’ve just switched to the 64-bit version of Gutsy’s beta on my laptop, a Dell Insprion 1501, and I can tell you, I’ve noticed a ruddy great drop in my laptop’s battery life – generally three hours under 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) and Windows Vista Home Premium with just the standard settings, Gutsy now tells me I have about two hours’ battery life.

This doesn’t effect me all that much since I almost always have it on AC power, but it’s slightly worrying. Mind you, I haven’t done my worst and plucked off every non-essential startup process, but, by Jingo, I don’t like it.

Overall, however, as one would expect, the older Ubuntu releases generally came in best for power consumption, particularly 5.04 and 6.06 (Dapper Drake, my first version). A side-note: Dapper was the first Ubuntu version released under the “LTS” (Long-Term Support) system, which meant, IIRC, three years’ support for the desktop release and five years’ support for the server release.

Next year’s Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Herron) will be an LTS release as well.

And now a quick update on my GNOME problems with Gutsy – it seems like the only thing wrong with GNOME is GNOME itself. I’m currently using Metacity under Xfce (with some GNOME Panel applets) and I can still use Compiz and Emerald under Xfce (a delightful surprise that would have been even more delightful if I could find any Emerald themes I liked).

So, in conclusion, go Xfce! And don’t forget to get rid of any unwanted startup processes when you’re using any OS on a notebook.