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I think the topic says it all. I'll be using the latest version of Ubuntu and was wondering if anyone who has done a similar switch recently can comment on their battery life before and after the switch. I'm going to hold off for a couple weeks because I want to wait until after my current classes are done. Thanks and sorry if this topic has been covered somewhere else recently.

There shouldn't be a whole lot of difference, if the same power saving features are enabled.

Anywhere from the same to far worse. My battery life on my Dell XPS M1330 is about cut in half in all pre 9.04 alpha builds compared to Vista, though those introduce other issues... So, best of luck.

Mine's quite a lot better on my Inspiron e1505, about the same on my IBM X41, and slightly worse on my Gateway M285-E. My HP 6730b runs much longer, but I think that's because Ubuntu gives much finer control of times to sleep/dim/suspend/etc than XP does. I've also noticed that Vista is better than XP at power management, but loads the machine more and thus chews more battery while running. All my observations, not necessarily scientific, so YMMV.

My averatec 1150-EH1 gets the same 2.5-3 hours but runs cooler and faster. My Lenovo x200 gets 9 hours with xp pro, 6 with Vista 64-bit and 5 hours with ubuntu 32 or 64-bit.

henry44 wrote:

My averatec 1150-EH1 gets the same 2.5-3 hours but runs cooler and faster. My Lenovo x200 gets 9 hours with xp pro, 6 with Vista 64-bit and 5 hours with ubuntu 32 or 64-bit.

Ehh, something is wrong with that. 3 hour difference?

thecoldanddarkone wrote:

henry44 wrote:

My averatec 1150-EH1 gets the same 2.5-3 hours but runs cooler and faster. My Lenovo x200 gets 9 hours with xp pro, 6 with Vista 64-bit and 5 hours with ubuntu 32 or 64-bit.

Ehh, something is wrong with that. 3 hour difference?

I also question how the averatec can be running cooler under Linux if the battery life is still the same. If it is using the same amount of power, it is dissipating the same amount of heat. Period.

I suppose the balance of power usage may shift (e.g. more power being dissipated in the screen versus the CPU) due to differences in power management strategies, giving the impression that it is running cooler. But that's probably a bit of a stretch.

Or perhaps Linux is simply getting the estimated battery life wrong, and telling you the battery is discharged when you've actually still got some life left.

just brew it! wrote:

I also question how the averatec can be running cooler under Linux if the battery life is still the same. If it is using the same amount of power, it is dissipating the same amount of heat. Period.

It could be something as simple as driving different cooling fan profiles. Yes, it will be dissipating the same amount of heat, but being actively cooled that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be doing it at the same temperature.

The difference in power draw due to the fan usage could be offset by more efficient use of some components or it may be Linux is not using some components e.g. internal modems can be a pain to find drivers for on Linux, or it could simply be lost in the noise.

notfred wrote:

It could be something as simple as driving different cooling fan profiles. Yes, it will be dissipating the same amount of heat, but being actively cooled that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be doing it at the same temperature.

Ahh... I hadn't thought of that. Good point.