10 ways to go green with Linux

Mar 05, 2009, 13:33 (0 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Jack Wallen)

"2: Powertop,br> This little gem of an application can help you learn how to make your laptops (and desktops) more efficient. When you run Powertop, it will examine your system and give you tips on how to better your energy performance. When I run Powertop on my laptop, I get: "Suggestion: Disable hal' from polling your cdrom with: hal-disable-polling --device /dev/scd0 'hal' is the component that auto-opens a window if you plug in a CD but disables SATA power saving from kicking in." Some of the suggestions will even tell you how much wattage you can save by killing (or configuring) services. Even though the man page for Powertop states it is for Intel-based machines, it will work on AMD machines as well.

"3: Netbooks
No matter how much you deny this, netbooks are not only here to stay but are growing faster than many predicted. Many of these netbooks are optimized for long battery life through minimal power usage. Intel has finally put a hand of cards into this game with its Moblin OS. Moblin's primary goal is low-power and high battery life. Moblin is a Linux-based operating system and is only for netbooks. Another netbook feature that makes them especially green is their no-moving-parts-storage -- which means they should exceed the lifespan of the standard notebook. So netbooks are one of the greener options available. And no matter how well Windows 7 is received, it can't beat the cost of Linux on a netbook."

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