how is battery life and heat with Linux these days?

I haven't used Linux on a notebook in the last couple of years. Compared to Windows, is reduced battery life and increased fan noise/heat still a problem with most distros?

 

With the latest Ubuntu 10.04 battery life seems to be within 20 minutes of Windows. I'd say mine run a bit hotter with Linux than with Windows.

 

I observe a similar loss of battery life, but I only notice a maringally slight increase in operating temperatures.

 

About the same on both counts.

 

I get about the same battery life for both Vista and Ubuntu 10.04 where both are undervolted. And it seems that Ubuntu seems to run cooler in my case since the for Ubuntu, the fan turns off while surfing the net which isn't the case for Vista where the fan is always on.

 

Linux seems to run a bit warmer and with more fan usage, but it's not bad for me. As far as battery life, it seems worse, but then again, back in my Windows days, I always shut off wless when I wasn't using it, and kept my screen pretty dim. I rarely bother now.

Cheers...

 

My experience is just like his. Runs cool enough to turn off the fan. And same battery life. This has been my experience with Ubuntu 8.10-10.04.

 

My battery life is drastically reduced with linux, unfortunately. Temps are about the same. I'm not sure about this a 100% as the temp sensors for HDD and CPU dont work for me (on my dv7); only GPU temp sensor works.

But on my old Sony Viao with a P4 and 1gb RAM, i get about 2 and half hours of battery life (with Mint 9).

 

This is a super subjective question. It depends hugely on what hardware you have and whether you choose an open driver or a closed one. In the case of NVIDIA, there is no frequency adjustment without the proprietary driver. For ATI, recent effort has been put into getting the GPU to clock down in the open driver, but again, for the best power saving you need the closed one. For Intel graphics, you get a hit or miss open driver.

Most of the older concerns about linux eating battery are being actively addressed, and there's lots of good resources like LessWatts.org - Saving Power on Intel systems with Linux that you can read.

I have two systems, an ASUS G51J that gets 1:45 hrs in windows, and 1:45 in Debian, using the binary (closed source) nvidia driver with the stock 6-cell battery. I have a U20A-B1 that has intel graphics and gets close to 7 hours with a 9 cell battery. I don't even have windows installed on that one so I can't compare.

The noise problem is different, and depends widely on your driver choices and BIOS. There are some tweaks to kernel modules for the various laptop brands that you can use to modify the fan speed. Some notebooks don't have an easy interface to control fan speed, again it's hugely subjective and hard to answer with a simple post.

 

I've got several laptops. This is what I've noticed during the time I have used them:

My Toshiba A75 laptop will only get 5 minutes worth of battery time from Ubuntu while Windows will get a least 2 hours. Ubuntu runs hotter.

My Acer laptop gets the same battery time in Ubuntu and Windows or at least very close to the same time. No noticeable heat difference.

My Dell Inspiron 6000 gets better battery time in Windows than in Ubuntu, but not by much. Both Windows and Ubuntu run hot on this laptop!!