Some Unix resources for lowering power consumption

Ecological issues around computing. This is an experimental forum.

Moderators: Ralf Hutter, Lawrence Lee

Post Reply
fri2219
Posts: 222
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:14 pm
Location: Forkbomb, New South Wales

Some Unix resources for lowering power consumption

Post by fri2219 » Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:42 am

Neither of these is actually new, but they're new to me at least. In the last couple of days, I've stumbled on:

1) Ubuntu's Intrepid Ibex distribution release has a new utility/daemon called fancontrol- it works a lot like speedfan, but only works with PWM devices. It's in the package 'lm-sensors' and you set it up with 'pwmconfig'. Here's how to set it up. Documentation should be in /usr/share/doc/lm-sensors/doc/fancontrol.txt.

2) IBM's developerWorks has a new collection of scripts up to monitor and throttle power useage accordingly: Reduce your PC's power consumption through smart activity monitors


Both of these require you to be somewhat familiar with the command line and basic administrative tasks.
Last edited by fri2219 on Wed Nov 05, 2008 8:27 pm, edited 4 times in total.

dukla2000
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1465
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2003 12:27 pm
Location: Reading.England.EU

Re: Some new Unix resources for lowering power consumption

Post by dukla2000 » Wed Nov 05, 2008 1:00 pm

fri2219 wrote:1) Ubuntu's Intrepid Ibex distribution release has a new utility/daemon called fanspeed- it works a lot like speedfan, but only works with PWM devices.
Do you have any links? All I can find is related to NVidia graphics cards (or Win). (fancontrol in lm_sensors is old hat.)

onocentaur
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:05 am
Location: UK

Post by onocentaur » Tue Feb 24, 2009 9:27 am

Would any windows apps run under Wine? The new Gigabyte motherboards come with energy-saving software, but of course it's windows only...

floffe
Posts: 497
Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 4:36 am
Location: Linköping, Sweden

Post by floffe » Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:06 am

onocentaur wrote:Would any windows apps run under Wine? The new Gigabyte motherboards come with energy-saving software, but of course it's windows only...
Probably not, since I assume they require direct hardware access.

Post Reply