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.
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Member since:2007-06-29
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...
Member since:2005-07-07
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.
Member since:2007-04-06
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?
Member since:
2005-07-07
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.