Guest post by Red Hat’s Matthew Garrett has actively been working on improving power management with graphics processors via the various open-source X.Org drivers. There is quite a lot of work involved, but at the FOSDEM x.org meeting he shared an update on his progress. In particular, Matthew is trying to conserve power with the GPU, memory, outputs, and displays. Read on to understand Red Hat’s work on power management.
…my laptop’s 6 years old and uses 1.21 Gigawatts a minute anyway. Right now I’ll settle for a driver that doesn’t leave artifacts all over the screen whenever I scroll in Firefox, or make X fall over like a sack of shit with the slightest breath of wind whenever I’m attempting to do anything requiring 3D or video acceleration.
/Sorry, I know I’m a bit OT, but this feels a bit like rodding the drains while the house is on fire.
The work Matthew is doing isn’t instead of improving graphics support, it’s as well as. While he works on power management, others are working on graphics drivers, memory managers, X improvements, etc…
I disagree with both remark of GPs:
1) Parent’s remark: the manpower is limited and it’s not like there are thousands of people working on 3D acceleration/video, everyone counts.
So the GP is right that if he had worked on something else, this ‘something else’ would have improved faster, he is of course wrong in that everybody is free to work on whatever topic.
2) GP’s remark: GPU’s power isn’t something to dismiss: many people don’t care about their videocard’s performance (because they don’t play 3D games especially not on their laptop), but they do care about the time that their laptop can stay up on battery though..
While I would certainly like to see better drivers as well this is nice for those whose chips support it as battery life under Linux is not near what it is on Windows. It is getting better but we are not there yet.