99Wh Battery Linux Laptop • Hacker News Board

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#101

Post by FunnyLookinHat » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:24 PM UTC

jnk345u8dfg9hjk wrote: post #64

neogodless wrote: post #51

Why in the world if you care about battery life do you put a 12th gen Intel H-series CPU in your laptop, and not a 5th or 6th gen AMD CPU? My Lenovo gaming laptop gets 5-6 hours with a 4th gen AMD H-series on a 60Wh battery.

Can you elaborate why these architectures give better battery life?

I'm not sure about the AMD option, but I can speak to the Intel trade-offs. H-Series CPUs are designed to be the "laptop workhorse" at a TDP of about 47W - whereas most laptops built for battery life nowadays use U-Series CPUs with a TDP of 15-17W depending on the generation.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#102

Post by b112 » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:26 PM UTC

gandalfgeek wrote: post #19

Isn't it a searing indictment of the entire Intel laptop chip lineup that a MacBook Air M1 has half the battery capacity (50Wh) while giving easily twice the battery life with as good or better performance -- and with no fans!

It's mostly systemd's fault.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#103

Post by 1letterunixname » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:28 PM UTC

So? The T480 has a 24 Wh internal battery and a 72 Wh removable battery. I have 4 of the 72 Wh and an external charger. 55 hours of runtime. What's the big deal?

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#104

Post by XorNot » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

nextos wrote: post #94

mrguyorama wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not Linux's fault per se It IS linux's fault, in the way that whenever someone new comes into the ecosystem and says "hey this important thing doesn't work well or is broken for me" and get accosted from all directions by crazy people who haven't touched mac or windows in 20 years who insist that what you describe isn't possible, linux is super easy to fix yourself (lol), and that ideas from computing in the 60…

I think Linux is not less efficient than other major OSes. I am able to squeeze 5% more battery from a MacBook Air 11'' Late 2012 using Linux vs macOS. This is possible because the machine is basically a pure Intel device, so in-kernel support for most hardware components is good. The key aspect is to implement fairly aggressive udev rules and to use no desktop environment, so that the CPU stays in powersaving states…

> and to use no desktop environment,

Why do people write comments like this as though it's reasonable way to use an everyday driver PC?

"I don't use a DE" - well then yes, obviously but you've also removed like 80% of the functionality to turn the thing into a dumb console. That's not what I want to use a computer for.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#105

Post by ratherbefuddled » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

I had a very poor experience buying from tuxedo and wouldn't recommend it. They shipped in a manner that triggered import duty (because they bundled all four into one shipment). Returning a defective laptop was impossible.

Tongfangs tend to be quite a bit better than Clevo also.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#106

Post by Matl » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:35 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #25

gandalfgeek wrote: post #19

Isn't it a searing indictment of the entire Intel laptop chip lineup that a MacBook Air M1 has half the battery capacity (50Wh) while giving easily twice the battery life with as good or better performance -- and with no fans!

It's also a searing indictment of Linux. I get less than half the battery life on my Alienware AMD laptop under Linux than under Windows. I don't know what Linux is doing wrong here, but it is not energy efficient.

Is any serious money going into optimizing Linux battery life on laptops? Not that I know of. Since there's no money in Linux laptops as compared to Windows laptops, why is this surprising?

I find it much more damming that Apple smokes Windows in battery life even despite Microsoft having its own line of laptops (Surface) and having the money to pour into it vs Linux.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#107

Post by nextos » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

XorNot wrote: post #104

nextos wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Linux is not less efficient than other major OSes. I am able to squeeze 5% more battery from a MacBook Air 11'' Late 2012 using Linux vs macOS. This is possible because the machine is basically a pure Intel device, so in-kernel support for most hardware components is good. The key aspect is to implement fairly aggressive udev rules and to use no desktop environment, so that the CPU stays in powersaving states…

> and to use no desktop environment, Why do people write comments like this as though it's reasonable way to use an everyday driver PC? "I don't use a DE" - well then yes, obviously but you've also removed like 80% of the functionality to turn the thing into a dumb console. That's not what I want to use a computer for.

No, DE doesn't mean I have a dumb console. It just means it's a bit lighter. I have all services a modern desktop has, I still run X plus a window manager.

I imagine Xfce or even GNOME 3 can be tweaked a bit to be almost equally energy efficient.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#108

Post by nikisweeting » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:40 PM UTC

The specs look great on the surface except for this:

1.0 Megapixel webcam!

In this age of video calling that's hardly acceptable, it's an unfortunately huge downside to what seems like an otherwise great device.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#109

Post by nikisweeting » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

Gordonjcp wrote: post #53

zamalek wrote: post #40

> Configure your InfinityBook Pro 14 optionally with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti and turn your lightweight business laptop into an ultra-portable gaming console! Why are so many Linux laptops NVIDIA? It know that we have the OS kernel + blob userspace option now, but it's still early days. My desktop is AMD, my laptop is NVIDIA, and the difference is night-and-day. I would honestly have an IGPU in a laptop over NV…

Because NVidia works in Linux. Intel isn't really accelerated, and AMD is buggy and doesn't do GPU compute acceleration terribly well.

Also all the AI/ML/CUDA tooling is written for NVidia, AMD driver support is terrible.

Re: 99Wh Battery Linux Laptop

#110

Post by mrb » Thu, Nov 17, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

slashdev wrote: post #25

gandalfgeek wrote: post #19

Isn't it a searing indictment of the entire Intel laptop chip lineup that a MacBook Air M1 has half the battery capacity (50Wh) while giving easily twice the battery life with as good or better performance -- and with no fans!

It's also a searing indictment of Linux. I get less than half the battery life on my Alienware AMD laptop under Linux than under Windows. I don't know what Linux is doing wrong here, but it is not energy efficient.

Usually it's the fault of the Linux drivers. They don't correctly configure the various integrated peripherals to draw as little current as possible: the WiFi chip, the Bluetooth chipset, the webcam, or whatever random integrated USB peripheral you find on an average laptop.