Recently in Power management Category

Make your PC even more green with Faronics power-management software

| | Comments (0) |

Heather Clancy at the Green Tech Pastures blog from ZDNet writes about Faronics' power-management software, which now runs in Mac's OS X in addition to Windows:

The Power Save Mac 2.0 software includes intelligent shutdown functions; the ability to schedule when a system should be awake, asleep or in standby; the ability to customize what "inactivity" means for a particular system; enterprise control; and a reports feature that generates records of energy and cost savings. The report generator creates a "before" record of your computer, as well, which serves as a benchmark against which savings are calculated.

Faronics estimates that using the utility will save you $25 per year. How much does the package cost? $14.10 per year.

Power management has been one of my biggest headaches in Linux and the BSDs. For me, even getting the CPU fan under control in my Gateway Solo 1450 laptop usually requires a bit of work. For a short bit of time, the 2.6.18 Linux kernel did this automatically, but since then I've had to write simple scripts to get the fan to only turn on when CPU temperature warrants it.

And as far as CPU throttling goes, — slowing down and using less power when it's not needed, I haven't yet been able to implement that, even though it seemingly should work on a Celeron M processor.

The biggest power-management issue I have is with suspend/resume. I suspect that suspend/resume hasn't worked that well for that long on most PCs even in Windows, but these days I figure that hardware manufacturers of Windows-compatible PCs supply drivers to implement power management to at least some degree.

Power-management is great on our iBook G4. Using that laptop has made me expect good power-management from all of my other machines. And yes, I'd like to get it.

I'm even willing to work at the command line to make it happen, but the information I have, for the Gateway anyway, is sparse at best, and plain wrong at worst.

Two newish Linux distributions to try: Sidux and wattOS

| | Comments (0) |

There's been quite a bit of rumbling about Sidux, a 2-year-old distribution based on the unstable Debian Sid GNU/Linux, with a shortish Carla Schroder review and a "why the hell does it exist" slamming from Matt Asay.

It means I'll have to try it.

An even newer Ubuntu-based distro is wattOS, which is designed to save power.

While still in an alpha state, it appears to be another one to try. Full power management under Linux is extremely important — and not always achievable.

Tech Talk column

Steven Rosenberg's weekly Tech Talk column, which appeared Saturdays in the Los Angeles Daily News through about October 2009, is available on the Daily News Technology page.

About this blog






Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.



About this Archive

This page is a archive of recent entries in the Power management category.

Pico-ITX is the previous category.

Radio is the next category.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Recent Comments

Anon on Google Chrome/Chromium crashy Flash problems (and a solution for Chromium in Linux): If you had a kernel panic the fault does not belong to Flash. I comple ...

Alan Rochester on Google Chrome/Chromium crashy Flash problems (and a solution for Chromium in Linux): It seems to be cropping up on a variety of distros... One howto is: h ...

Johnny Angel on File under 'this can't be a good sign': Unity development stalls for openSUSE, Fedora: I'm a little guy but I've told my friends that if they need future hel ...

Steven Rosenberg on OpenBSD how-to: Installing GRUB and dual-booting with Windows: I'm not commenting on where pkg_add installs a given package. All I'm ...

Thanos Tsouanas on OpenBSD how-to: Installing GRUB and dual-booting with Windows: Nice notes. A few comments though: "The reason is that pkg_add puts ...

Steve Chan on Ubuntu's money problem: How much (if any) should Canonical take from Banshee's Amazon sales? (And did Canonical split the baby right in the final compromise?): Messy, predatory and hidden???? Woot? I didn't realise that the Bans ...

Steven Rosenberg on A very early look at Fedora 15 through the 2/17/11 nightly build: It's surprisingly stable: You know what I like about living in Los Angeles? You might think it's ...

Pablo Marchant on A very early look at Fedora 15 through the 2/17/11 nightly build: It's surprisingly stable: I think the situation of the author happens under two different scenar ...

Steven Rosenberg on Fedora 13 updates: New kernel 2.6.34.7-61 fixes NetworkManager suspend issue: Things only got worse for me with F13 and F14. I switched to Debian. ...

Herald van der Breggen on Fedora 13 updates: New kernel 2.6.34.7-61 fixes NetworkManager suspend issue: Same problem here and this appeared to be a solution for me: after boo ...

Powered by Movable Type 4.25

Search this blog

Loading

LXer

Links

Life, the Universe and Debian
Daily News technology
LXer
Distrowatch
Linus' Blog
David Pogue
BoingBoing
Linux Today
TuxRadar
Linux.com
Linux Planet
The Open Road
Linux Outlaws podcast
Dan Lynch
Fabian Scherschel
The VAR Guy
Larry the Free Software Guy
Chess Griffin
Linux Reality podcast
Desktop Linux
Practical Technology
Linux Devices
ZDNet
ZDNet's Storage Bits
ZDNet U.K.
iTWire
CNet News
Webware
Beyond Binary
TechCrunch
The Register
Ars Technica
Reg Developer
Computerworld
Computerworld blogs
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at Computerworld
Debian
Planet Debian
Debian Forums
Debian News
debianHELP
debiantutorials.org
The Debian User
Wolfgang Lonien
Debian-News.net
Debian Administration
Debian Admin
Debian Weather
Aaron Toponce
Ubuntu
Xubuntu
Kubuntu
Edubuntu
Planet Ubuntu
Ubuntu Forums
Ubuntu Geek
Works With U
OMG! Ubuntu!
I' Been to Ubuntu
Tanner Helland
Dustin Kirkland
Ubuntu UK Podcast
Ubuntu Linux Help
Popey
Linux Mint
CrunchBang Linux
OpenBSD
OpenBSD Journal
OpenBSD Ports
OpenBSD 101
Planet.OpenBSD.nu
jggimi's OpenBSD live CD
DaemonForums
BSDanywhere
Marc Balmer
Denny's OpenBSD blog
Polarwave's OpenBSD Tips and Tricks
Binary Updates for OpenBSD
Puppy Linux
Damn Small Linux
Tiny Core Linux
Lucky 13's Linux blog (lots of Tiny Core)
Lucky 13's BSD blog
PCLinuxOS
Mandriva
Red Hat
Red Hat News
Red Hat Blogs
Red Hat: Truth Happens
Red Hat Magazine
CentOS
Planet CentOS
Fedora
Planet Fedora
Fedora Forums
Fedora Docs
Join Fedora
Paul Frields
Slackware
Slackbuilds
Robby's Slackware Packages
Slackblogs
dropline GNOME for Slackware
GNOME Slackbuild
GWARE - GNOME for Slackware
Wolvix
Zenwalk Linux
Vector Linux
Slax
Splack Linux — Slackware for Sparc
Nonux
How to Forge
marc.info BSD and Linux mailing list archive
FreeBSD
FreeBSD, the Unknown Giant
A Year in the Life of a BSD Guru
NetBSD
hubertf's NetBSD Blog
PC-BSD
Daemon Forums
FreeBSD Forums
Planet FreeBSD
Evilcoder.org
miwi's Privat Blog
DragonFlyBSD
DragonFlyBSD Digest
DesktopBSD
BSD Talk podcast
BSD Magazine
Rhyous
OpenSolaris
MilaX
BeleniX
DeLi Linux
Linux Loop
Electronista
The Tech Report
Engadget
Gizmodo
Phoronix
xkcd – A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language
Nixie Pixel
Technology for Mortals
Thoughts on Technology
ZaReason
System 76
Tiger Direct
NewEgg
DealExtreme

Advertisement