Submitted by Green, power reduction, and climate change are all the rage these days, and the world of computers is not off the hook on this one. Software and hardware manufacturers are trying hard to keep power consumption down – while first something for mostly mobile computers, desktops and servers are now part of the effort too. PC World tested Windows Server 2008 and two Linux server offerings and compared their power usage patterns.They took Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition, Red Hat’s Enterprise Linux 5.1, and SUSE Enterprise Linux 10 SP1, and loaded them on popular 1U server machines; one from Dell, one from IBM, and two from HP. The results point to a clear victor:
Our tests point to Linux as the winner of the green flag by margins that topped out at 12 per cent. But we must note that our results are full of stipulations imposed by our test bed, and as the more truthful car advertisements might warn – your wattage may vary.
However, PC World was quite disappointed by the amount of work and tinkering needed to actually get the power conservation technologies to work properly.
Microsoft, Red Hat and Novell/SUSE each have power savings and green initiatives that are widely publicized. Nonetheless, we were astounded by the effort we needed to undertake in order to chase down of firmware, BIOS and other updates was necessary to get real savings in the tests we conducted. Tuning servers for optimized power savings could yield better results, but would create a new painstakingly tedious server management discipline required to constantly control the deep complexities of the configuration variables involved.
Well, I don’t run a server and I don’t do ‘scientific’ tests or other techno mumbo-jumbo, but my laptops seems to have slightly longer battery life with Ubuntu and Vector Linux compared to Vista….Heh! Not so surprising considering the hard-drive light is nearly always blinking when running Vista.
It may be interesting to compare your Ubuntu too XP on the same machine. I’m a Mandriva user myself, I only mention it because XP seems to be closer too par based on hardware needs and sp3 should have all the latest power saving goodness in it.
As for the mention of tinkering in the article, that’s about where I am. I just turned powersaving off through KDE after consistantly coming home to a hung machine since turning it on. Dumping down the needed powersaving tweaking for the average users would insure that us above average users have no issues getting adjustments right.
(My specific grief may be bad ram instead and if it is; blast you Bullistics, I’m going back to OCZ
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@ jabbotts
Sorry mate,
As of 2 days ago, my main laptop is Linux only. I reinstalled Ubuntu over the whole drive.
The second one is actually a dual-boot Vector Linux and WinXP sp2 box (forgot to mention it, sorry) and Vector manages to get about 20 minutes more out of it. It’s an old laptop though and I’ve never done battery calibration on it…. and Vector is a very lightweight distro to begin with…. so it’s probably not a fair comparison.
Doubt I’ll be getting sp3 though. I don’t need Windows for anything now. I use a Mac Pro for my job and will probably use open source software hereon for other stuff. (the only reason I continued relying on Windows was because the codec pack I needed to watch my hi-def Japanese anime was windows only and VLC for Mac wasn’t cutting it, but that was before I discovered the awesome MPlayer for Linux)
Cheers.
Edited 2008-06-11 16:19 UTC
No worries, it was a passing curiousity as all my bare metal runs Mandriva except a gaming boot and the two osX machines.
On my work issued machine, I tend to get more battery out of the WinXP boot. In that case, I am not free to modify partitions so I can only use a liveCD against it without power save tuning. There again, it’s not a balanced comparison between the two.
I dual boot Linux and OS X on my Macbook. I’ve consistently found that OS X provides me with about 30 minutes more battery time. This is even after running Powertop and turning off services I do not need.
While OS X server has sod all market share, perhaps it would have been interesting to put some Xserves into the mix? My anecdotal experience suggests that it’s fairly good when it comes to power management.
Remember that with a MacBook, Apple has designed both the OS and the hardware to work together. I bet that if you rolled your own version of Linux targeting your exact hardware you could possibly surpass the power efficiency of OSX on it’s native hardware.
just my 2 cents…
So in order to get the same power saving benefits that I get for free with OS X, not only do I need to manually tweak the services that run, remove unwanted features, unload unneeded modules and analyze my power consumption via powertop, I need to roll my own distro!?
Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.
Apple has already rolled their own distro to only include the drivers and service need for their limited hardware spectrum. So, OSX will always perform in the best possible way on Apple hardware.
On the other hand, Ubuntu is made to run on most modern hardware. So, it is loaded with drivers and services to cover almost anything that it may encounter out in the wild within reason.
I’m not a betting man, but I would venture to guess that if OSX was made to run on off the shelf hardware that it would not perform as well as Ubuntu or any modern distro for that matter.
“So in order to get the same power saving benefits that I get for free with OS X”
Did the Apple store not invoice you for the hardware and software license? I’m limited to only getting benefits from Apple that I pay for. Any way I could get in on that sweet deal you have going?
My MBP, too, lasts considerably longer on OSX than either XP or Kubuntu 8.04
A more interesting, and perhaps fair, comparison would be a custom Linux distro vs OSX on a Hackintosh. Maybe one of those Psystar boxes. Suddendly OSX wouldn’t be able to take advantage of all that custom (and in many cases, proprietary) firmware, etc.
I’d love to see the results from that – anyone?
Same here….
I heard someone was releasing a OSX based tablet laptop. Dunno if it’s out yet, but using that thing loaded with Leopard vs. a similar sized Fujitsu/NEC/Dell/HP laptop loaded with a custom build of Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu would be a good comparo for power consumption..
My money’s on the Linux one, though, coz I’m cheap.
Edited 2008-06-10 22:15 UTC
If it’s the same osX tablet I saw in the news a while back, the guy is taking macbooks and hacking the case together adding a touchscreen layer and leaving out the keyboard and hinge then reselling them. It’s still all Apple up until the hardware hacker bit of processing.
Having strong battery life just makes for good laptop and battery sales.
Power saving for desktops and servers just makes them cheaper to run. Less power consumption means having to pay out less in bills.
But doing things for “going green” or “climate change” is bunch of garbage perpetrated by fascists and all the liberal nonsense. Being environmentally-friendly is a good thing, but doing anything because of “climate change” or for “global warming”, is an invalid argument continuously poured out by crazy liberals who don’t think for themself and do not question all scientific evidence before deciding for themself if they even believe it exsists or not.
I take it your new Mac has been fixed to your satsifaction, Mr. Limbaugh.
Well, you’re right, but for the wrong reasons.
“Climate change” is a hoax, not because it’s not there, but because there is literally *NOTHING* that one can do about it. The CO2 is simply there, no way to bring it down.
But there is a valid reason to cut the use of energy. And that is called Peak Oil. It’s fairly simple, actually, the cheap oil is running out (not, “the oil is running out”). This affects oil *AND* food prices everywhere now.
The reason the climate change hoax is promoted is to put the public safely to sleep and create an issue that people can debate on while the establishment is out for real business.
Because in the end, nobody gives a [peep] about “climate change”. And everybody knows that, still it’s nice to give people in the opposition, who have nothing to do anyway, some toys.
See what happens in the US – finally people start buying the cars most of the rest of the world drives. The somewhat less greedy-for-gas type. Not because of Al Gore’s Sermons, but because of Uncle Sam’s Clams.
But I do think that you, as well, have been caught by the distraction, because not only is the climate change thing a hoax, the “there is no CO2 problem” controversy it ITSELF a hoax too.
I am disappointed at your playing down the importance of reducing energy consumption, and instead pushing your own political agenda. Global warming is but one of many very important practical and environmental reasons to conserve. Mining or drilling for fossil fuels has a very real impact. Burning those fossil fuels has a very real impact. It does not matter whether you find the arguments for global warming to be convincing. The conclusion which any rational person must draw regarding the need to conserve is clear. It was clear back in the 1970’s when I was growing up during the “energy crisis”. After that, we ignored it for a long time, simply choosing SUVs instead of cars to get around CAFE, etc.
But the fact remains, and is still clear today: We must do what we can to conserve. And there is a fantastic amount of low-hanging fruit still ripe for the picking.
Please do not try to minimize the issue, or derail the conversation with a personal pet peeve.
And on that note, I invite Windows, Linux, *BSD, and Mac users, along with everyone else, to help each other to see ways to conserve. Because regardless of the OS we prefer… we are all in this together. I’m 45. And my generation has so far failed to do anything meaningful about this problem. I call upon all of you, now, to succeed where my generation has failed.
Edited 2008-06-10 20:16 UTC
You mean the 1970s when climatologist were warning about the impending threat of “global cooling”? Or the 1970s when the man made “energy crisis” hit due to the OPEC cartel deciding to stop the shipments of oil to countries supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur war?
AGW is a hoax. It may be happening (though evidence shows that the earth has begun to cool), but its a real stretch to try an pin the blame on human activity.
Nevertheless, I’m all in favor of reducing the power consumed by computers. Less power consumed = less cooling needed = longer lasting hardware. Thats in addition to the $$$ saved through lower energy bills.
“AGW is a hoax”
Prove it.
I’m not fully convinced that global warming, in the long haul, is actually happening. Nor am I fully convinced it’s because of excessive human pollution and not due to natural global climate cycles. However, there is tons of credible, hard, scientific evidence from multitudes of credible sources, that points to the validity of these theories.
So I say let’s take it seriously. Conservation and reducing pollution are good things regardless. There is nothing to lose, and a lot to gain (reduced dependence on foreign oil, for example).
But then there is the anti-global-warming-theory crowd, who have shown up on this thread. They continually say it isn’t happening, that it’s all “fascist liberals”, or “it’s a hoax” or “it will ruin the economy”, or they simply try to discredit all of the multitudes of scientists and climatologists, that support global warming theory, as being anti-American liberal commies. All this without making any kind of logical argument, without providing any decent evidence from any credible sources, to support their extreme positions.
These folks are nothing more than ultra right-wing extremist ideologues who are unwilling to look at scientific evidence.
And no, “because Rush Limbaugh says so” is not credible evidence.
So, once again, prove it (and prove me wrong). I sincerely hope you can give a decent argument – I’d love to here it. Again, I’m not fully convinced about the threat of global warming.
But I reject completely right-wingers who reject global warming theory based entirely on their politics, pre-conceived notions, or ideals.
Just base it on science, please.
I’m not fully convinced that global warming, in the long haul, is actually happening.
Well, just to butt in to this conversation, just ask some finn if they’ve noticed any changes in the climate in the last few years….Here in the north it is absolutely clear there has been a dramatical change. Like f.ex. just until two-three years back the winters were usually something like -20C to -30C degrees below zero. Now? Well, the weather hardly drops even to -20C, I only remember once this last winter. The year before that was just as warm as this one.
Actually, I think that a more meaningful proposal would be for ANYONE to tie any rise in global temperatures to human activity. Ergo, absent human activity, would there be any rise in global temperatures? People seem to gloss over this question as if it doesn’t matter at all, but wouldn’t you want to know, if you were about to devote trillions upon trillions of dollars into buying/bartering carbon credits, whether it will have any impact? I don’t take the outcome of this activity for granted. Neither should any rationally-thinking adult. I think that we can all agree, though, that consuming less energy is a good thing, overall, and that’s what we should be shooting for. Not artificial carbon emissions targets being sold by politicians.
Anthropogenic Global Warming != Global Warming.
That’s where the majority of the public completely misunderstand the issue. It isn’t so much about global warming or climate change (nice new spin on it seeing as Britain is getting colder winters for example). It’s about the lack of evidence that links human activity with the climate.
Geological records show great fluctuations in the earth’s climate history. Given that we’ve seen far greater changes in the earths climate (e.g. going to and from an ice age) before the existence of humans, it really is down to the AGW lobby to demonstrate a clear causal link between human activity and this rise in global temperature.
edit: Nevertheless, here’s NASA’s GISTemp graph of mean US temperature http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/updates/200708_correction_b.gif. What does that tell you? See the dip in the 1970s? Remember those climatologists crying about global cooling? See the rise in the 90s? See the mean temperature peaking in …. 1998? Then notice that the average annual temperature for the 21st century is not remarkably different from the annual temperature in the 1930s.
Color me a skeptic, but I see the hysteria about AGW as just that. Hysteria. Granted, the climate is changing and only a fool will deny history. Nevertheless, the demonstrable link between human activity (i.e. the A in AGW) has not been demonstrated at all. In fact, the popular media either does not understand or chooses to ignore this very important concept.
Edited 2008-06-11 05:38 UTC
“Britain is getting colder wintersâ€
It certainly isn’t – in my childhood, 20 years ago, we had snow. Lots of snow. Lots of deep snow.
It’s rare now to see more than 1 day of snow a year.
I find with recent winters I can get by without needing a coat unless it is raining (which sadly is still often
)
If selfish reasons are what float your boat, far be it from me to disagree. You are correct. Those are good reasons to conserve. Also, less reliance upon foreign powers for fuels makes one’s country less vulnerable to manipulation by those powers. Yes, there are plenty of selfish reasons to conserve.
If those are what persuade you to do the right thing, I’m all for it, and do not particularly care whether you see greenhouse gas induced warming to be a real threat or not. So please do not sing a “one note samba” regarding your skepticism toward climate change. The big picture encompasses far more than that.
Edited 2008-06-10 20:42 UTC
Thank you for bringing that long thread of political BS into a Technical Forum. It would be a shame to, say, discuss the issue purely on technological points related to information systems.
“Greener computing” are the hot words on the IT media, but the concept is not in the CIO’s head. The only exception I can remember is Google and even then is not about saving energy, is about using alternative energy sources.
As far as I can tell, only small companies care about saving energy on servers because they pay the bill. When the servers are hosted on datacenters, things goes like “it’s not my business” and I can’t remember a single Datacenter saying things like “hey, we’ll cause ‘little’ performance impact on your servers to save energy, is that OK?”. No customer would agree to that.
Greener computing on server systems does not sound the right thing to be concerned. Putting OSes side-by-side is like asking to create another useless flamewar.
“… and the next article in the series is ‘Achieving server performance on laptops.'”
…
for all those people who are scared the earth is getting warmer, mars is getting warmer by thesame amount (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720024.ece)
anyway, more on topic. the article provided little information about the test they did (i want pretty graphs!) and which kind of load they put on the server.
when selecting a green server, please take everything in account. idle usage is for example for more important that peak usage for a webserver. you could let the harddisks spin down, but if they breakdown because of this they need to be replaced. replacing disks is most likely worse for the environment than having continuously spinning disks.
Edited 2008-06-11 18:38 UTC