Ubuntu 10.04 Is More Power Hungry Than Windows 7

[kraftman]

Why do you say speculation?
They measured power consumption on the same machine with two different OS. You can say that there are many reasons that explain the difference, but the measurements are not speculation: that's data.

Data itself means usually nothing.

And sure, if they used different brightness settings that'll be pretty stupid, then again, I bet that if the results were reversed, everybody would be chanting how good Ubuntu is over Windows instead of trying to split hair.

And this is an excuse or something? Afaik more Windows users read Phoronix, so they're chanting how good Windows is over Ubuntu instead of trying to split hair.

[yankeeDDL]

That's the whole point. The interesting thing to me is not that Windows 'won this contest'. But why did it win, and that's where facts matter, and speculation won't do. But hey if all you care about is a pissing contest between two operating systems to declare a winner then I guess this article will do just fine for you.

Monraaf, we're all entitled to our own opinions, but have you actually read the article?

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is using the Nouveau KMS driver by default for the open-source NVIDIA driver, which currently does not implement any power management support

It clearly explains that the graphic chip in the Eee (which obviously is a major contributor in power consumption) is not managed in Ubuntu's drivers, which means it runs full throttle all the time.
It doesn't really matter if you run on AC or on battery: if you always run it full-throttle you're always going to burn more power than if you do *any* throttling.
That's pretty clear to me: we have data, and we understand it. Now we can pretend that we picked a netbook that puts Ubuntu in "bad" light, but if the Nouveau drivers don't implement power management ... well, I doubt Ubuntu is going to win *any* contest until the drivers are improved.

[monraaf]

It clearly explains that the graphic chip in the Eee (which obviously is a major contributor in power consumption) is not managed in Ubuntu's drivers, which means it runs full throttle all the time.

And the first thing people with nvidia cards usually do is install the binary drivers and according to the test then there's still a difference in power consumption.

[yotambien]

Data itself means usually nothing.

Nonsense. Data, as opposed to hearsay and handwaving, means everything. The whole point of the Phoronix test suite is to collect data, which can afterwards be analysed and discussed.

I guess you meant to highlight the importance of the interpretation of the data, or perhaps its validation. If that is the case I concede the point, but I'm just speculating about what you wanted to say...

And this is an excuse or something? Afaik more Windows users read Phoronix, so they're chanting how good Windows is over Ubuntu instead of trying to split hair.

Come on now, I bet your life that Linux users are a majority within Phoronix readership. Why are you saying the opposite? What did I miss? Are you perhaps referring to browser statistics?

[deanjo]

Data itself means usually nothing.

Walk up to over whelming majority of laptop owners and ask them how does their system provide good battery life. They don't know and most of them don't care. All they care about is the amount of battery life they do get, not how it is achieved.

[kraftman]

Nonsense. Data, as opposed to hearsay and handwaving, means everything.

When one system is theoretically updating the database and it's compared against another one which is drinking a coffee such data means nothing. You'll have numbers and you can then try to analyze everything, but an only data won't tell you what those OS's were doing, so your conclusion can be simply wrong.

The whole point of the Phoronix test suite is to collect data, which can afterwards be analysed and discussed. I guess you meant to highlight the importance of the interpretation of the data, or perhaps its validation. If that is the case I concede the point, but I'm just speculating about what you wanted to say...

Then the whole Phoronix point is dumb stupid. They should care about the as much ideal situations as possible, so the data numbers will be much more interesting and meaningful (and to not let some random situations happen like doing something in the background or similar). In your opinion they're forcing readers to analyze provided data, so they're also misleading others (who do not know they should do this) by providing some kind of data and using misleading article titles? While the data must be analyzed why there are made some assumptions just after the benchmarks?

Come on now, I bet your life that Linux users are a majority within Phoronix readership. Why are you saying the opposite? What did I miss? Are you perhaps referring to browser statistics?

Afaik there was some New year's sum up and there were more Windows users visitors.

[kraftman]

Walk up to over whelming majority of laptop owners and ask them how does their system provide good battery life. They don't know and most of them don't care. All they care about is the amount of battery life they do get, not how it is achieved.

If only testing conditions were as they should be it's ok, because if one screen was lighter or Ubuntu on netbooks has some additional package installed which helps it to operate longer on batteries such comparison is meaningless. However, the tittle of the article is still very misleading.

[kraftman]

but an only data won't tell you what those OS's were doing,

The same data...

[yotambien]

Nonsense. Data, as opposed to hearsay and handwaving, means everything.

When one system is theoretically updating the database and it's compared against another one which is drinking a coffee such data means nothing. You'll have numbers and you can then try to analyze everything, but an only data won't tell you what those OS's were doing, so your conclusion can be simply wrong.

Groarr, you are not paying attention or you just want to have an argument out of nothing. I know--really well--that you can't blindly accept a bunch of numbers without looking at them. But once you ascertain their validity and understand their scope, they become useful data from which to extract conclusions about whatever it is they refer to.

You just presented an imaginary screwed-up scenario that, in any case, doesn't support your previous assertion about "data itself [meaning] usually nothing". So again, what you are saying--hopefully--is that the data collection procedure has to be adequate. We all agree about that. Note that I'm not saying a word about this particular benchmark; but I couldn't resist making a comment about that outrageous sentence of yours.

The whole point of the Phoronix test suite is to collect data, which can afterwards be analysed and discussed. I guess you meant to highlight the importance of the interpretation of the data, or perhaps its validation. If that is the case I concede the point, but I'm just speculating about what you wanted to say...

Then the whole Phoronix point is dumb stupid. They should care about the as much ideal situations as possible, so the data numbers will be much more interesting and meaningful (and to not let some random situations happen like doing something in the background or similar). In your opinion they're forcing readers to analyze provided data, so they're also misleading others (who do not know they should do this) by providing some kind of data and using misleading article titles? While the data must be analyzed why there are made some assumptions just after the benchmarks?

You are mixing things up, making up others, and overall missing the point. It is not for me to sort that out. But I can tell you that I personally enjoy the forum discussions that follow the benchmark articles. However flawed some of the benchmarks sometimes may seem, there is almost always something to learn from them and the comments of some readers.

Afaik there was some New year's sum up and there were more Windows users visitors.

You refer to something like this, unless the numbers have drastically changed since some months ago:

Linux: 47.4%
Windows: 41.3%
Macintosh: 7.9%
Unknown: 2.6%
BSD: 0.2%
Solaris: 0.1%

But you have to realise that many people access Phoronix from work with a Windows machine.

[stevea]

but when both were loaded with NVIDIA's binary driver that leverages PowerMizer and other power-savings techniques, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS averaged to consume just 9% more power.

Since when is 25watts vs 24watts "9% more" ?