Linux has bad battery duration compared to Windows. What can I do? | Hacker News Reader

Linux has bad battery duration compared to Windows. What can I do?

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52 pointswslh27 comments

At the risk of being “that guy”, my solution was to buy an M1 MacBook Air.

At some point you have to accept that there is no one in the linux space incentivized to create a modern desktop experience, much less laptop power optimization comparable to a “vertically integrated” player like Apple.

I would love to get Apple hardware and battery life running Debian. Maybe Asahi will make it happen. In the mean time, I’m enjoying 99% of the things I like about Linux, with none of the massive pain wading through forum posts trying to figure out what bitman97 did back in 2015 to get their backlight to work with the Debian stable kernel

This.

I love Linux, but I also just want to be productive in my job. Gone are the days where I can spend hours happily compiling my own kernel to optimize the hell out of bootup time and slim it down. There's no single ready to use distro that has a somewhat modern feel to it (IMHO).

So I bit the bullet long ago, bought a Mac, made it feel as close as home as I could and I haven't spent a second trying to debug a random bug affecting my bluetooth, audio, graphics or wifi card since. The only thing I truly miss is i3wm.

I also gave up on Linux. I ran Ubuntu 20.04 for about 6-8 months for work and play. I got tired of having to find workarounds for software.

I bought a Mac M1 mini late last year and shit just works. I don't regret the purchase a single bit. Would I prefer to be on Linux? Definitely.

Hopefully, software bundling tech like Flatpack and Snap will make the distribution and stability of software a lot better in the future.

Is there something better than Homebrew for package distribution in macOS?

Fink and MacPorts, for a given definition of "better." They at least don't abandon older OS releases as quickly.

What's wrong with homebrew?

I got tired of having to find workarounds for software.

That's probably because you have a good bit of time invested in particular pieces of software, and the change to a Linux equivalent means you would have to start learning that equivalent software all the way from scratch back to your current level of expertise.

Never having used Windows or MacOS as my 'every-day' operating system, I don't have to 'unlearn everything' before I get to start learning a Linux equivalent. So, I don't have any problems at all running my Linux system for everything I need. In fact, my moving to MacOS to get to your levels of expertise would be just as unproductive for me as it is for you to move to Linux.

This is a common dismissal of these complaints, but I don't think it rings true. Having used the "linux equivalent" of many pieces of software, it's clear to me that the equivalents are a lot more work than the non-linux software.

The use case I always use as an example is spell-checking multiple languages in a document. MS Word handles this automatically, you don't have to tell it that you're mixing languages. However, OpenOffice requires you to go the the general config and enable each language app-wide (meaning the multiple languages are now being spell-checked across all documents, not just this one). It's not only a broken design paradigm, it's a lot more work to find the config panel to enable multiple languages.

Having used the "linux equivalent" of many pieces of software, it's clear to me that the equivalents are a lot more work than the non-linux software.

To you.

Which was my point exactly. I don't have any difficulty in using my 'every day Linux apps' while you do.

As a counter example to your MS Word case, I find it so hard and annoying to install Windows software. In Linux, I open the software package manager, use the 'search' function and click on the desired software, then click on 'install' and it's done. And when there is an upgrade to that software, the package manager will automatically upgrade it on my machine.

This always comes down to a no true scottsman argument, right? I clearly haven't used the Linux apps enough, otherwise I would accept that they're just as good (if not better) than the non-Linux apps. Maybe you're right, but I'm just saying that just because you've found a possible explanation, you shouldn't assume that it's correct. There are other possibilities, such as me being right.

It's not that every Linux app is as good as it's non-Linux equivalent, it's that using either Linux/not-Linux for long enough makes you good at doing what Linux/not-Linux is good at. It's more like if you grew up driving tractors, and op grew up on a fishing boat. Tractors aren't less work - they are different work.

Well to re-state my position, I believe, based on my experience, that for most common tasks, starting with zero knowledge of both a commercial program and it's "Linux equivalent", the Linux equivalent is more work to accomplish the task. Likewise, once someone has mastered the commercial program, and also mastered the equivalent, I believe that the equivalent will still be more work to accomplish common tasks. The key connecting detail here is the common tasks, which are something someone would want to do in a general class of programs (such as lighten an image, write a book report on Moby Dick, or make a budget in a spreadsheet) before even choosing one.

Besides Microsoft hardware products which represent a small share of the Windows hardware ecosystem there isn't a vertically integrated player in the Windows world but battery life on these same laptops tends to be massively better under Windows. Ubuntu and Fedora are certified for my Thinkpad and Lenovo sold it with them installed but the battery life on Windows is at least twice that under Linux. The market is just too small for Lenovo to dedicate much effort to optimizing battery life for Linux. Lenovo updates the Windows power management driver for the laptop regularly.

Windows probably has at least one person dedicated to making battery life better.

I feel like the problem with a lot of products is that there is no one dedicated specifically to the important features. If you want better battery life, you can’t haphazardly tell everyone involved to improve battery life and expect to get it — you need some that will audit everyone involved and literally shut people down.

Linux is a collection of different people’s work and so everything is sort of haphazardly sort of trying to reach a goal without ever reaching that goal, hence why Linux on the desktop is still not popular.

> Windows probably has at least one person dedicated to making battery life better

I think that person works for the hardware manufacturer, and wrote the Windows driver. I think that the likely problem here is that "Linux certified" just means that there are no showstopping bugs, "equal battery life to Windows" isn't a metric anyone is shooting for. I keep hoping that someone (maybe System 76 of Valve?) will take Linux hardware support REALLY seriously and get show what can be done.

Wsl2 was the solution for me, I prefer it over the mac I used to use

Yeah no. The Air is defintiely better than my 2018 MBP but the 2018 MBP gets in tthe way so much. Crashes multiple times a day for no reason. This macbook fanboyism is tiring

The m1 locks up when doing basic haskell compiles. People fight that comparing apples ridiculous pricing to pc is not apple to apple and yet here were comparing the work of volunteers to a greedy company that exploits the planet through planned obsolescence and pushes for that. And does green washing in marketing.

m1 mac user here. No issues when compiling things. Maybe you got a lemon?

Hopefully not. I have seen that when for example compiling shellcheck from source or doing a rust compile.

The real problem is that laptop manifacturers aren't incentivized to optimize their stuff for linux. Just look at videos the steam deck to see what happens when linux is a first class and windows a second class citizen

I saw massive differences in window managers. Every Linux machine I have beats windows in battery life by a very large margin iff I use i3. With default (‘nicer looking’ depending on taste) they do far less. Like my 2011 x220 still does 15 hours on i3, gpd pocket 1 similar, Pandora gets 20 hours, etc. The ones that run Windows, like the pocket and x220, barely make 4 hours. Note that I did optimise the Linux and did nothing to the windows installs, but still. I have a stack of laptops with dual boot from Dell, Acer etc and I have the same results there; far shorter than the above go to machines, but windows less than half of Linux for anything I do.

How many batteries does your x220 have attached to it? You’re probably running the extended one and the one that attaches to the bottom right? Mine won’t last 2hs on its own with the portable battery that doesn’t stick out. I think it’s the i5.

So I wonder if "using fewer GPU calls" is the solution to Linux's battery problems, or if you've just found a parallel way to cut battery usage that counteracts it...

Best solution I have seen is to buy a Chromebook and install galliumOS. Still has most of the same issues as any desktop Linux but at least has all the power saving features of chromeos are included. That way you don't have to buy a device from a company that decides to throttle the CPU when they want you to buy a new computer.

Except for phones, do you have a link for other hardware, such as laptops?

Does gallium work on the recent Chromebooks? I thought it wasn't possible

I once bought a windows ultrabook for on the road, with a 128gb ssd. When I unpacked the computer 90% was used by the operating system. It was basically useless. I installed Linux and only 6gb was used. I had no battery issues. I could use apt install. Life was beautiful.

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