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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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 Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:05 pm Post subject: Gentoo wasting too much energy? |
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Hello,
Just wondered if using Gentoo is sensitive in an ecological point of view?
Think about all these laptops and computers, using Gentoo, which have to frequently compile lots of stuff to keep up to date. Laptops do of course regulate power dissipation of the cpu according to the demand and more and more computers do the same. So one can think that over a year Gentoo users do use more energy than say users of a binary based operating system (Debian, Ubuntu, Suse, Redhat, ...).
When using a binary based operating system, a small group of developpers do the job of compiling the programs. The users only have to download the finished binaries. By the way I think, maybe I'm wrong?, that binary downloads are generally smaller than source based downloads. So here we also have savings in time and energy.
Another thing could be, while compiling everything, your harddrive is more prone to break down earlier. Wonder how much ressources and energy is needed to build one harddrive?
Maybe the savings are not that great, but think if there were 1 million Gentoo users (does oneone know the number?), how much energy must be wasted. Could be in the terms of a nuclear power plant?
What do you think about this subjet?
While using Gentoo for about 3 years maybe it is time to change too a more ecological operating system  . Only way to go would be a distribution based on Debian. Wonder if I would go directly to the original in unstable or try out a user-friendly descendant like Ubuntu.
Greetings,
Daniel |
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inode77
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry but that is just a stupid post. Come on and what about all the computers idling around worldwide, what about the advertisement lights, cristmas decoration?
And other distros DO NOT PROVIDE was gentoo has to offer. (You said you used if for 3 years and still you describe exactly what gentoo is not.)
Feel free to change to another distro, free world, free choice.
I hope it's an early 1st april fool's joke:!:  |
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Arainach
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Joined: 08 Jul 2004
Posts: 609
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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Short Answer: No
Long Answer: The difference in power consumption between a CPU at 10% and a CPU at 100% is minimal. So any computer that's on is, in general, just as bad as a Gentoo machine that's on. So Gentoo's not harmful.
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LucaSpiller
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Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Posts: 188
Location: Censorship Land (aka England)
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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If there are 1 million Gentoo users, that minimal amount soon adds up though - but really it isn't going to make that much of a difference.
Will it make you happy if I go and plant another tree in the back garden? 
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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Arainach wrote: | Short Answer: No
Long Answer: The difference in power consumption between a CPU at 10% and a CPU at 100% is minimal. So any computer that's on is, in general, just as bad as a Gentoo machine that's on. So Gentoo's not harmful. |
Hm, really. At last it does make a real difference on my laptop if it runs idle or at full speed. |
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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| inode77 wrote: |
Feel free to change to another distro, free world, free choice.
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I don't think I want to give up Gentoo , no other distribution gives me such great control over what gets installed and how  And I did learn much things about how a GNU/Linux works.
At last for my servers I will keep Gentoo.
A few days ago I did try out Ubuntu, wanted to see a desktop-oriented Debian system. Really nice, almost everything worked out of the box and didn't have to wait hours before the compile process finished. |
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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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| LucaSpiller wrote: | If there are 1 million Gentoo users, that minimal amount soon adds up though - but really it isn't going to make that much of a difference.
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Hm, in our country a small town needed a new power plant. But they did do a different thing: most of the households and shops were equiped with energy saving lamps and at the end they didn't need a new power plant
So small things can pill up to make a real difference.
| LucaSpiller wrote: |
Will it make you happy if I go and plant another tree in the back garden?
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I do like trees, so go on |
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masonm
Tux's lil' helper
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:45 pm Post subject: |
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I know there must be a joke in here somewhere but I just can't find it.
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MasonM
Linux: because a PC is a terrible thing to waste.
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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:59 pm Post subject: |
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| masonm wrote: | | I know there must be a joke in here somewhere but I just can't find it. |
Life is a joke |
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wjholden
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Joined: 01 Mar 2004
Posts: 826
Location: Augusta, GA
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 9:15 pm Post subject: |
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| soulwarrior wrote: | | Arainach wrote: | Short Answer: No
Long Answer: The difference in power consumption between a CPU at 10% and a CPU at 100% is minimal. So any computer that's on is, in general, just as bad as a Gentoo machine that's on. So Gentoo's not harmful. |
Hm, really. At last it does make a real difference on my laptop if it runs idle or at full speed. |
I know nothing about this, but if that's true then I'd say it's your RAM and hard drive eating battery power. My desktop/server never turns off, and it has six hard drives. If it weren't for the 7 fans I could bake a pizza in that thing (mmm engineering idea...better not  ). |
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nihues
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Joined: 20 May 2003
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Location: Balneário Camboriú / SC
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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Ecologicaly speaking, we maybe contributing to the raise of global temperature with all these cpu@100%!!! 
No, just kidding, but certainly we are contributing to raise of local rooms where computers are running  |
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racoontje
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Joined: 19 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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| soulwarrior wrote: | | LucaSpiller wrote: | If there are 1 million Gentoo users, that minimal amount soon adds up though - but really it isn't going to make that much of a difference.
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Hm, in our country a small town needed a new power plant. But they did do a different thing: most of the households and shops were equiped with energy saving lamps and at the end they didn't need a new power plant
So small things can pill up to make a real difference.
| LucaSpiller wrote: |
Will it make you happy if I go and plant another tree in the back garden?
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I do like trees, so go on |
Dude. A normal, non-power saving lamp based on a wolfram wire is an EXTREMELY unefficient electrical appliance. It has ~2% efficiency (rest is heat loss) |
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soulwarrior
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| racoontje wrote: |
Dude. A normal, non-power saving lamp based on a wolfram wire is an EXTREMELY unefficient electrical appliance. It has ~2% efficiency (rest is heat loss) |
I do know that.
Hm, just googled and found that page: http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/7417. Let's take the worst case from this power consumption chart, the Pentium 4 3.4GHz. It does consume 151 Watt in idle mode and 236 Watt while encoding an Xmpeg video. That would make a difference of 85 Watt.
Just a note: Don't take this too seriously , life is too short for that. Nonetheless this question came up and I wanted to know the opinion of other gentoo-people, nothing more. |
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MaxDamage
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Joined: 03 Jan 2004
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Location: Oviedo, Spain
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 10:50 pm Post subject: |
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Athcool (in portage) helps saving energy sending a halt instruction to the processor when you aren't using it 100%. Works great.
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soulwarrior
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| Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| MaxDamage wrote: | | Athcool (in portage) helps saving energy sending a halt instruction to the processor when you aren't using it 100%. Works great. |
I do use already the ondemand governor for my Mobile AMD Athlon
But you are right should try this out on my other Athlon based computer, thanks. |
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Lokheed
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:36 am Post subject: |
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Next time you make such a statement, it might be wise to actually do some research on power consumption of CPUs and PCs operating at different speeds and thresholds.
You might find that power consumption frm a CPU running 100% vs a CPU running 2% might not differ much, blowing your entire argument up in your face. You may also find that one brand of CPU might consume more power than another brand. You might also find that power supplies are also a factor on energy usage. You might also find that type and size of monitor might have a larger impact on energy consumption than CPUs do...
There are so many points in your post that are simply not founded on any basis of factual data...You might as well ask people if they think aliens come down periodically to spike our ozone layer with toxic agents because you heard in the news, the ozone layer was decreasing...
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masonm
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Joined: 17 Mar 2005
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Location: Plant City, FL
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 12:58 am Post subject: |
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I thought the aliens spiking the ozone layer was a well known fact by now.
Donning tin foil hat.
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MasonM
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soulwarrior
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Joined: 21 Oct 2002
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:07 am Post subject: |
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| Lokheed wrote: |
You might find that power consumption frm a CPU running 100% vs a CPU running 2% might not differ much, blowing your entire argument up in your face. You may also find that one brand of CPU might consume more power than another brand. You might also find that power supplies are also a factor on energy usage. You might also find that type and size of monitor might have a larger impact on energy consumption than CPUs do...
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 , of course there exist different versions of computer's, cpu's, ... But I don't think that is the point.
Take one system and try to be the most energy efficient to perform a certain task (typing a letter, surfing) with this system.
Hm, wouldn't it be great if I could download by bitorrent or other means precompiled packages for Gentoo? Would just be difficult to manage such a system (security, different combination of use flags, ...). |
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steveb
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Posts: 4564
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:14 am Post subject: |
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Banner from #debian at freenode.net: | Code: | | Gentoo Linux causes global warming! Needlessly recompiling everything uses power. Fossil fuels are used to generate that power. Hug a tree, use Debian! |
so much for education.... where do they get all this nonsence?
cheers
SteveB |
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Lokheed
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:31 am Post subject: |
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| soulwarrior wrote: | of course there exist different versions of computer's, cpu's, ... But I don't think that is the point.
Take one system and try to be the most energy efficient to perform a certain task (typing a letter, surfing) with this system.
Hm, wouldn't it be great if I could download by bitorrent or other means precompiled packages for Gentoo? Would just be difficult to manage such a system (security, different combination of use flags, ...). |
That is the point. You cant base an entire argument on skewed or erred facts. You dont have any facts to back up your initial post. You might as well see if aliens are stealing the ozone layer because both share the same amount of facts: 0.
Having a binary only version of Gentoo is useless. How many posts do we need on this subject. Show me some facts on energy consumptions stats or anything based on factual data that concludes that Gentoo uses more power (and fossil fuels, my area is powered by hydro-eletricity which is renewable btw) than other distros and we can work from there.
You are asking questions and making statements without having a solid base. You might as well build a house on a swamp...your foundations are about as solid. That is my point. Since when did we lose the need to actually supply proof before we make claims? If you say something, its on you to prove it, not on my to disprove the matter...that is if you want to stay scientific about this. You can always just shoot off like a crackpot...
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Lokheed
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Location: /usr/src/linux
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:32 am Post subject: |
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| steveb wrote: | Banner from #debian at freenode.net: | Code: | | Gentoo Linux causes global warming! Needlessly recompiling everything uses power. Fossil fuels are used to generate that power. Hug a tree, use Debian! |
so much for education.... where do they get all this nonsence?
cheers
SteveB |
They have a team of monkeys working around the clock on this kind of stuff. Problem lies when people assimilate this tripe as if it were the truth...
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rhill
Retired Dev
Joined: 22 Oct 2004
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Location: sk.ca
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 2:26 am Post subject: |
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nah, they have the devs writing the taglines. the monkeys are working on sarge.
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electrofreak
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Location: Ohio, USA
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 4:26 am Post subject: |
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what about all the distributed things like SETI and Dnet? People on all distros and OSes use them. As for hard drive strain... not that much. I've never noticed the hard drive working so extremely hard to compile something.
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Hypnos
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:55 am Post subject: |
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Power and precision always cost energy -- a thermodynamic fact. A book recently written on the topic:
The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy
by Peter W. Huber, Mark P. Mills
(Amazon link)
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Goalie_Ca
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| Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 7:11 am Post subject: |
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The environmental damage from just owning a computer and having it turned on once in a while is probably far greater than the extra energy used compiling. If you want to save the environment don't buy electronics.
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