[SC.LUG] Eco Computing

[Richard Smedley]

Hello Matthew,

On 03/08/10 10:09, Matthew Tolley wrote:
> I am reliably informed that Linux uses less power than other operating
> systems.

Reliably informed? On some Intel platforms GNU/Linux will
perform worse as ACPI in the kernel doesn't match the
Windows kernel which is native to the platform.

However, and it's a big however, GNU/Linux runs on
much better platforms from an environmental point of
view. The Android phone in your pocket is a fully-featured
computer running on tiny amounts of power on ARM chips
(UK technology!).

The juice to run PCs is only part of the story. Manufacture
uses energy and water, and involves strip-mining rare
metals and creating pollution in plastics manufacture;
disposal involves heavy-metal pollution.

GNU/Linux can keep 10 yr and older PCs running in classrooms
and training suites with LTSP. My youngest child has an
11 year old IBM laptop running the latest Ubuntu software.
I think it unlikely that it could run Windows 7.

> Are there some good quality third party websites which you can refer me
> to which have benchmarked or measured this?

You might want to look at data centre figures for
virtualisation, where 8nix makes far better use
of resources.

Regards,

 - Richard

--
http://goodGNUs.org/