Another Major Linux Power Regression Spotted

When pounding the CPU with the OpenSSL benchmark, again it clearly illustrates changes with the Linux 2.6.35 and 2.6.38 kernels for the worse. The battery power consumption rate goes up by 18% with the Linux 2.6.35 kernel and another 4% with Linux 2.6.38.

This is simply the composite result when aggregating all of the data from the five previous tests. Up to the Linux 2.6.35 kernel, the ThinkPad R52 has an overall average battery power consumption rate of 21~22 Watts, then in Linux 2.6.35 goes up to 25 Watts, and now with the Linux 2.6.38 kernel has a 26 Watt average with a 31 Watt peak for the MPlayer / Stream / OpenArena / OpenSSL loads.

The investigation continues and more tests should come. Your feedback is also welcome about this Linux kernel power consumption testing or general performance testing and test practices so that performance monitoring and continuous integration can be improved for Linux and open-source projects. Contact me or let me know on Twitter or PTS Commercial for other services.

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