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- schestowitz, on 02/01/2008, -26/+10Interesting bits there about retirement. Also, it's funny that he doesn't like DRM, yet he likes Tivoization that closes his code.
- tgoose, on 02/01/2008, -2/+13I don't think that's a very sensible analysis of his position.
Disliking something doesn't mean thinking it's right to prevent people from doing it. - harlowsmonkeys, on 02/01/2008, -2/+16Tivoization doesn't close his code. You are free to take the Tivo code and use it in, say, MythTV. Tivoization just prevents running the code on that particular hardware. It no more closes the code than putting code in ROM closes it.
- Andytom, on 02/01/2008, -1/+1Key bit here "HIS code"
- TehDoctor, on 02/01/2008, -3/+6Man, spit RMS's ***** out for five seconds. It doesn't close the code. I can still get the Linux source and do whatever I want with it, and I don't need to use a damn Tivo if I don't want. Zealots like you are the reason people think Linux is for weirdos.
- tgoose, on 02/01/2008, -2/+13I don't think that's a very sensible analysis of his position.
- radison2, on 02/01/2008, -1/+71The easiest way to make an operating system 'GREEN' is to not include any print function.
- RyeBrye, on 02/01/2008, -16/+37Yep... that pretty much applies to Linux if you are talking about standard print drivers...
- andycr512, on 02/01/2008, -1/+16I don't have a printer (OK, maybe there's one or two in the basement I haven't tested because I never use them anymore) that doesn't work out of the box on distros with good out of the box hardware support (such as Ubuntu). Maybe I'm lucky.
- renegadeafk, on 02/01/2008, -2/+7really old printers often work, but any new printer I've tried besides HP doesn't. My Canon MP160 sorta half works but not to an acceptable level. YM dell A920 didn't work at all.
- Tenoq, on 02/01/2008, -2/+12You actually expected a Dell printer to work? They're bad enough under Windows....
- zachtib, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3The problem is that Dell printers are often rebranded Lexmarks, which don't have Linux support, generally.
However, my Brother HL-2040 that I just got works great under Linux. - sarixe, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1HP's jetdirect is awesome. I use it in school all the time, printing from my laptop. (Though I have to print to another room, as the HP's in the room I use my laptop in, don't have jetdirect set up for some reason...)
- cliffzdude, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Jet Directs have nothing to do with driver compatibility. It just sends the print job via TCP port 9100 (or 9102, or 9103 for multiple port Jet Directs). Drivers are still an issue with network printing.
- stoanhart, on 02/01/2008, -0/+5That's why anyone who supports linux should only buy HP printers. Full 100% open source driver support by the company who makes the hardware, which is exactly what we need. As linux slowly continues its creep into mainstream, the other printer manufacturers will start to feel the pain as people stop buying their *****.
- renegadeafk, on 02/01/2008, -2/+7really old printers often work, but any new printer I've tried besides HP doesn't. My Canon MP160 sorta half works but not to an acceptable level. YM dell A920 didn't work at all.
- Magnes, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2I use Epson Stylus 400. Drivers for Linux are much better than those for XP.
- andycr512, on 02/01/2008, -1/+16I don't have a printer (OK, maybe there's one or two in the basement I haven't tested because I never use them anymore) that doesn't work out of the box on distros with good out of the box hardware support (such as Ubuntu). Maybe I'm lucky.
- Stonekeeper, on 02/01/2008, -1/+7Have you used linux this side of 2000? Printers have always worked out of the box for me and setting them up couldn't be any lazier. It detects the printer on the network, it tells you what it is, it tells you what driver it's going to use and you're done. Great for "yeah yeah yeah" people who click next.
- RyeBrye, on 02/01/2008, -16/+37Yep... that pretty much applies to Linux if you are talking about standard print drivers...
- DiggLive, on 02/01/2008, -4/+13*Linux a green kernel
- griff36, on 02/01/2008, -3/+18did this article actually say anything?
first paragraph maybe.
the rest?
title does not fit. - wukillabee, on 02/01/2008, -20/+0windows is teh best
- infimprob, on 02/01/2008, -3/+6Windows may be 'teh' best but for the literate computer user would beg to differ.
- ZephyrNinety, on 02/01/2008, -8/+2What?
- davidkeithjones, on 02/01/2008, -2/+42How does a piece of software become green? Its just code executed by a power hungry machine. I understand that an OS can optimize some power features; however, the onus is largely on the manufacturers.
- BlackKnight6, on 02/01/2008, -1/+4Exactly, one way is buying a C2 solo from Intel or AMD's EE series CPUs is gonna have a bigger effect than the OS running (as long as the OS makes use of the CPU and other components' features, which they do)
- daftman, on 02/01/2008, -0/+12use less resources like memory and cpu cycles. Those things waste electricity.
- geminitojanus, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3Close, actually. Less cycles on CPUs (which allow CPUs like the Core 2 to drop to a lower C* state), and powering off unused hardware (such as spinning down hard disks, turning off extra buses when they're not in use, etc).
These are Direct ways that an Operating System can be "Green" and save companies, especially those with farms and farms of computers, hundreds of thousands to millions in power draw.
- geminitojanus, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3Close, actually. Less cycles on CPUs (which allow CPUs like the Core 2 to drop to a lower C* state), and powering off unused hardware (such as spinning down hard disks, turning off extra buses when they're not in use, etc).
- vvaduva, on 02/01/2008, -10/+2It's marketing BS....maybe coding in green fonts may help, but making Linux green is bullcrap
- Tenoq, on 02/01/2008, -4/+23Make the software more efficient at doing it's task. You know, the opposite of say... Vista.
- culbeda, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Isn't slagging Vista's power management vs. Linux a bit like slagging the availability of games on Vista vs. Linux?
- HonoredMule, on 02/01/2008, -1/+6Bring the benefits of modern computing to old machines.
Keep old hardware in business rather than in landfills.
Reduce the massive pollution generated by hardware manufacturing processes.
Or, you could buy a new machine that's more energy efficient, and put your old machine (loaded with nasty substances) in a landfill. I'm sure the environment will love you for saving 3 watts. - TeacherOfHeroes, on 02/01/2008, -1/+1The article talks about how they now have the framework in place to monitor power consumption more accurately in the kernel.
From the sounds of it, this means that they can now start to optimize the kernel (and, I suspect, kernel mode device drivers) to be more efficient in terms of power. This may very well impact energy usage at the hardware level and not just the software level (if you can even make that distinction), since the kernel and drivers run pretty much as close to the physical hardware as you can get.
- oodledoodle, on 02/01/2008, -6/+4im glad they're taking the time to address this because in all honestly my ubuntu laptop really struggles to last as long on battery as xp used to. free as in beer, speech but not electricity bills (yet). i also think that ATI need to step up their power management within their drivers, without setting the powerstate to 1 via sessions, my notebook really kicks out some serious heat. there's no need to have a gfx chip drawing so much power 100% of the time.
- HonoredMule, on 02/01/2008, -2/+3What kind of messed up laptop/ubuntu install do you have? I have a crappy eMachines laptop from a while back that I ran XP on for a while, and the POS would last about 50 minutes on battery sitting idle. I plopped Fedora Core 4 on it, and thereafter it lasted about an hour and a half with moderate use.
- tomzer1, on 02/01/2008, -5/+5The quickest mod to "green" your Linux machine: unplug it.
- davidkeithjones, on 02/01/2008, -1/+7Turn it off when you dont use it.
- vibrokatana, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4Hibernation works great on my linux box and macbook. If I leave the room I let them sleep as they restore within a second.
- davidkeithjones, on 02/01/2008, -1/+7Turn it off when you dont use it.
- ryan83189, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Green washing.
- DigitalDaiquiri, on 02/01/2008, -1/+7Wow, I hate reading articles where the premise of the piece is based entirely around the use of quotes. What happened to journalism?
That being said, go Linus!- daftman, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Here on digg? surely you jest.
- geminitojanus, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2Digg, and the dozens of like minded sites, happened to journalism. Who cares if you've got no content, those page views get you ad views, makes you money. Quick, throw a nice LOLcat on the end of that story, that'll increase clicks!
- oobuntu, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1they are reporting soundbites heard from linux at the conference. it's probably best if they don't comment , because most journalists don't know what they're talking about. which is why often the comments on sites like slashdot are more informative than the article itself.
- billmccartney, on 02/01/2008, -3/+3Actually I just bought a power meter from newegg ($15) and I started playing around with things... I turned on the CPUFREQ stuff in the kernel on my desktop, and it alone, dropped my power by 30%... since I leave my machine on all the time I'll save $50 a year at least!!!
I would recommend anyone who runs linux to try to turn on the cpufreq stuff, just to see if they can save money too! I am not an environmentalist, but if I can save money... that sounds good.- TheG2, on 02/01/2008, -2/+1Your power supply begs to differ.
- talkingwires, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4"I am not an environmentalist, but if I can save money... that sounds good."
Helllllo, Republican!
- daok, on 02/01/2008, -8/+4What are you guy smoking ... Code and ecology? As usual, Linux need some good press about no subject... this became ridiculous, what next? Linux will reduce the CO2 emission of the WHOLE planet...
- sirhomer, on 02/01/2008, -0/+6It's possible. If some change makes computers use 1W less of power by default, that would make a huge impact on CO2 emissions. With tens of millions of Linux machines in the world that's enough to match the output of a medium sized powerplant.
- vibrokatana, on 02/01/2008, -1/+5Well theoretically linux does (and OSX) because the hardware will last longer before needing an upgrade. I built my desktop over a year and a half ago and all I have replaced is the video card (which I bought a cheapo at the time to fit it into my budget). Many people are still running G3s and G4s and I still use an old P3 as a server for development/testing and it is pretty fast for its age.
- daedius, on 02/01/2008, -4/+2Free software in general is good for the environment. Think of how many pizzas boxes and jolt cans are saved because programmers don't have to rewrite new lines of code! With a new "Green" kernel, we are saving the world from the true natural disaster of the world - programmers ;P
- jiveturkeyblues, on 02/01/2008, -0/+6am i the only one who hates the term green, and would prefer "ecologically responsible" or something similar? it's so tacky.
- etx313, on 02/01/2008, -4/+4Green... Can we get back to the Scientology bashing?
- CrashKC, on 08/25/2008, -2/+2On digg, GREEN in big blinky lights = frenzied digging
- jasutton, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4Next headline: "Scientists link global warming to breathing. Mass asphyxiation recommended."
- InorganicMatter, on 02/01/2008, -8/+1Too little, too late.
- BaronSamedi242, on 02/01/2008, -6/+0What are they going to use only free-range, fair trade and bioenergetic ones and zeroes?
- vvaduva, on 02/01/2008, -4/+1What a load of crap...everyone jumping on the "green" bandwagon to get sympathy from everyone who wants to listen
- drag, on 02/01/2008, -1/+7""What are you guy smoking ... Code and ecology? As usual, Linux need some good press about no subject... this became ridiculous, what next? Linux will reduce the CO2 emission of the WHOLE planet...""
Well it helps to have a f-ing clue what your talking about before you start complaining that you don't understand what another person is talking about. Get it? Good. It's ok to admit that you don't understand stuff, that is the first step towards learning.. but insulting other people because you don't know is not a good way to go about doing things. It's a bit backwards.
:P
(Oh, and this goes the same for all the dozens of you silly silly people jumping on the 'OMG DID HE SAY "GREEN"?)
They are talking about _Power_Management_. That until relatively recently Linux lacked the driver support, developer understanding, and performance measuring tools to take full advantage of the power management features present in most modern hardware. Not only in laptops, but also in handhelds, Phones, desktops, servers and the like.
For most people who use Linux on a day-to-day basis with laptops they know that installing Linux over Windows was a good way to take a hour or so off of the battery life. It's not that Linux is bloated or using hardware more then Windows, it's just that certain programs did bad things to defeat power management and Linux does not generally take advantage of PC hardware features as well as Windows XP does. All of this is pretty much a 'duh' if you think about it.
Now this is mostly changed. Nowadays my Linux laptop is better at 'sleep' and is fairly efficient. Generally I have a easier time with Wifi then my XP using friends do.
But XP is old news, how Linux compares to Vista.. I don't know. It's going to be a while for hardware to catch up to Vista, overcome it's bloat, and allow that OS to really shine.
A couple examples of this: Vista has followed OS X and Linux by putting it's video drivers in userspace, which is a good move and helps a lot with stability and dealing with buggy drivers from Nvidia or ATI. That should make gamers happy.. I have a hell of a time getting things like 'Bio Shock' working on XP and have it not completely lock up the computer every 20 minutes or so. Same thing with audio drivers.. no more buggy creative stuff crashing the OS all the time. (of course, buggy drivers can make the hardware itself crash, but there really isn't anything you can do about that OS-wise other then not have buggy drivers.)
Another thing I've noticed is that consumer networked devices have come together for Vista. Go into a network with Vista and it won't take more then a few seconds for the OS to locate and establish connections with whatever media device is on there. All of this UPnP stuff, it's mostly ignored by desktop Linux. Hopefully this will change.
So with Vista power management vs Linux's support. I don't know. I bet it's very good, it's very important for Microsoft to get that right because mobile computing is the future for personal computing.- andycr512, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1"So with Vista power management vs Linux's support. I don't know. I bet it's very good"
Vista on my laptop, Aero off: 1.5 hours
Linux on my laptop, Compiz ON: 3 hours
Not sure why.
- andycr512, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1"So with Vista power management vs Linux's support. I don't know. I bet it's very good"
- loconet, on 02/01/2008, -1/+2pfft..what does _he_ know?
- OneAndOnlySnob, on 02/01/2008, -1/+2Yay, I was getting sick of brown!
- ArthurSucks, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2They've done a lot so far. My old beat up gateway laptop gets more battery life now than it did with XP.
- linuxrebel, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2Whew... I for one am glad. I was so tired of all of the Blue and Brown desktops. I for one welcome our green overlords. And hope that within 10 years we can add the colors red and yellow to our crayon set.
- MrSkrilla, on 02/01/2008, -4/+1***** eli manning
- Aggronaut, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1to all the ppl who buy into this "green" thing.....al gore does not have his hand on some magical global thermostat that he can adjust simply because you buy carbon credits....
- charlietuna, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Green operating system? Is that like a soy based shared library?
- AppleMacMan, on 02/01/2008, -9/+0Years behind the Mac. NEXT!
- Beatmiser, on 02/01/2008, -0/+1Honestly, this is not front-page worthy with the title as it stands. But really as much as I care about the environment, slapping the word 'green' on a computer does not help save a glacier.
- TheGreatBelow, on 02/01/2008, -9/+1Linux sucks.
- Zaggynl, on 02/01/2008, -0/+4I was amazed by the difference of power usage between a PC and a laptop.
My laptop uses 20W on idle, and about 35W when stressed (orthos32/wc3 tft)
and my desktop uses 130W idle, and 230W when stressed (orthos32/3dmark06)- welshie, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3I hope that your test was performed without a battery installed in the laptop, otherwise you're just seeing how much your laptop draws power as it charges. The problem, as you have identified, is that desktop PC design normally doesn't even think about power saving, because it can draw as much as it need from the mains outlet; they are more concerned with running lots of cooling fans to cool the inefficient chipsets, CPU and GPUs.
That said, most desktops ARE more capable machines than laptops - the hard disks, for instance, have better performance, and the graphics chipsets can be much better.
One of the big problems that any OS designer faces when trying to implement energy saving measures is that all the components of the system need to understand what happens when the OS is trying to enter whatever sleep state, and needs to know how to return to 'normal. Many drivers, or firmware doesn't know how to re-instate normal running after an apparent power outage to that component (say, the system has hibernated), without the BIOS initialisation code - that's why a laptop is normally better at power saving, because very few people modify them and add insane graphics cards, or fibre channel cards, or whatever.- billmccartney, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2I'll back up Zaggynl's numbers, I too see my laptop's peak usage around 42-45 watts... depending on usage. That IS without the battery :)
I was wondering, are there settings in windows to reduce the cpu speed (like it does in a laptop)? One interesting thing in linux, is that all computers (laptop or otherwise) can be treated the same - So if your cpu supports a low power mode, you can save a good chunk of change by slowing down the cpu when it is idle...
- billmccartney, on 02/01/2008, -0/+2I'll back up Zaggynl's numbers, I too see my laptop's peak usage around 42-45 watts... depending on usage. That IS without the battery :)
- welshie, on 02/01/2008, -0/+3I hope that your test was performed without a battery installed in the laptop, otherwise you're just seeing how much your laptop draws power as it charges. The problem, as you have identified, is that desktop PC design normally doesn't even think about power saving, because it can draw as much as it need from the mains outlet; they are more concerned with running lots of cooling fans to cool the inefficient chipsets, CPU and GPUs.
- Splinterx, on 02/17/2008, -0/+1Linux is the future
- mhmdkhamis, on 06/29/2008, -0/+0Free software in general is good for the environment. Think of how many pizzas boxes and jolt cans are saved because programmers don't have to rewrite new lines of code! With a new "Green" kernel, we are saving the world from the true natural disaster of the world - programmers ;P
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