Comment Re:Battery Life - Windows (Score 3, Informative) 229
"Windows (especially Vista/7) currently has a sizable lead over Linux in this regard"
I will politely disagree with that.
The nature of OS design is usually tradeoffs, therefore what one's strength is another's weakness and vice-versa... in short, use what works for you.
That said; I'm running a 17" widescreen 2Ghz Core2 Duo laptop with dedicated video and I get much better battery life with Linux out of the box than Vista.
Vista would get roughly 2 hrs (aero turned off and in battery savings mode).
Fedora 10 with KDE4 I consistently get about 2:45 without tweaking the default settings.
I've also had the same experience between linux and XP on a previous "desktop replacement" laptop.
Can't speak for Win7 though...
(I know those times are low, but my wife refers to my laptop as "an affront to god"... it's a big fella)
I've found that the main difference is mostly in how much it will scale back. Vista seams to only scale back partially, because it never wants to give the impression of poor performance. Whereas most linux distro's have no problem taking my laptop down to 800mhz if i'm just reading a document.
As with most things OS related; it's a trade-off.
Personally, I don't mind that it scales so far down, but some people can't wait that extra micro-second for the cpu to jump the clockspeed back up when they change gears. To me the battery life difference is worth it.
Just figured I'd share my experience. More facts are always good. Your mileage may vary.
I will politely disagree with that.
The nature of OS design is usually tradeoffs, therefore what one's strength is another's weakness and vice-versa... in short, use what works for you.
That said; I'm running a 17" widescreen 2Ghz Core2 Duo laptop with dedicated video and I get much better battery life with Linux out of the box than Vista.
Vista would get roughly 2 hrs (aero turned off and in battery savings mode).
Fedora 10 with KDE4 I consistently get about 2:45 without tweaking the default settings.
I've also had the same experience between linux and XP on a previous "desktop replacement" laptop.
Can't speak for Win7 though...
(I know those times are low, but my wife refers to my laptop as "an affront to god"... it's a big fella)
I've found that the main difference is mostly in how much it will scale back. Vista seams to only scale back partially, because it never wants to give the impression of poor performance. Whereas most linux distro's have no problem taking my laptop down to 800mhz if i'm just reading a document.
As with most things OS related; it's a trade-off.
Personally, I don't mind that it scales so far down, but some people can't wait that extra micro-second for the cpu to jump the clockspeed back up when they change gears. To me the battery life difference is worth it.
Just figured I'd share my experience. More facts are always good. Your mileage may vary.
