Ubuntu Power

Popular Linux distribution Ubuntu is known for a lot of things — but long battery life is not one of them. Users that have installed Ubuntu on notebook computers that had previously run Windows or another operating system have been complaining for years that their battery life drops after installing Ubuntu.

Now Ubuntu engineer Colin King says he’s taking a closer look at power management in the operating system. The goal is to find ways to reduce power consumption in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin so that when the next version of the operating system is available in April, 2012 it will offer better battery life on mobile computers.

King says early tests are already showing that it’s possible to save a few watts by enabling low power states for USB and PCI controllers, wireless, Bluetooth, and other features.

You can find out how to help test by reading King’s blog post and checking out the power management page on the Ubuntu Kernel wiki.

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4 replies on “Ubuntu 12.04 could offer better battery life”

  1. This is the MAIN ISSUE, the major problem of Linux / Ubuntu. No way I’m going to use linux to have less 2 hours of battery with it. 

  2. i think Ubuntu should take the Integrated Approach like Apple. One platform, one OS , fully supported hardware.

    1. The “UNIX philosophy” that all linux distros follow states:

      Choose portability over efficiency.

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