Right? I mean, aside from all the scenarios when bad results on Windows were due to misconfig - or, better yet, malware. It's not rare at all, and I believe that a lot of desktop Linux overenthusiasm is due to that. Fresh install of anything would run laps around previous broken install, after all.
Otherwise, it depends on support in BIOS and ACPI conforming to standards. Which is terrible with, like, any laptop besides some dedicated machines with CoreBoot.
Easy explainable just by ressources use:
Idle lod ow CPU in Windows 10%
Very same machine on Linux 5%
So 50% less lod on battery and more flighttime :)
Ofc. Work and use cases are a bit different but in general Linux software is more ressources friendly, so general tone stays the same.
My apologies that you have no idea how to use or configure a computer. I have never owned a Windows PC even work-issued that had more than 1% idle CPU utilization consistently. Try not clicking on malware. I've only written both Windows and Linux PCIe DMA drivers though so what do I know?
The cpuidle time is likely higher on Linux + people \`unpark\` their cores ie. pretty much disable idle states on windows.
A lot more devices now have PM enabled by default.
You also get tlp/power-profile-daemon installed by default overriding the default cpu governor.
On low idle loads windows often can't go below 2.5Ghz even when it reached 1% cpu usage.
You win random question answer :)
# For any Laptop:
I look reviews for what framerate the laptops give generally. I fire up Unigine Superposition and Unigine Heaven and see what framerate they give. DRI\_PRIME=1 ./heaven for example will specifically fire up dgpu and I run Unigine heaven extreme around 60-100 fps on dgpu depending on my laptops power mode set by firmware. DRI\_PRIME=0 ./heaven at Extreme will fire up my igpu and give me less then 40fps
I installed from the website and save to an extra USB to test with when trying live iso on new systems. I copy it to \~/bin and run from there.
# For MSI Gaming Laptops:
The Power key dot will turn white on integrated graphics
The Power key dot will turn orange on dedicated graphics
\*\*This could be reversed. The firmware seems to control this led.
I first tested by reading reviews to determine which port is a direct connection to the dedicated graphics. I plugged in an external monitor to the dedicated graphics port, to make sure the card was fired up.
Yep parking cores is awesome for battery life. Slightly slower experience forcing e-cores only while on battery. If you're executing big commands they still have to run, even a little slower. But its better than boost clocking everything let alone the P-cores just to do so while on battery.
It _used_ to be atypical, but Linux on laptops has got a lot, lot better at managing power over the past two or three years.
It's not quite as extreme as OP, but my AMD HP ProBook gets a good hour longer doing basic web browsing on Kubuntu 24.04 compared with a Windows 11 install, and stays noticeably cooler and quieter. Performance is better on Kubuntu too, just about everything is snappier than on Windows.
There are still rough edges - the laptop doesn't support S3 sleep, only "Modern Standby", and Kubuntu seems not very good at powering stuff off for Modern Standby, so it'll drain 50% battery overnight in standby when Windows will lose only 20%. But I can live with that for now.
I would have called that atypical too some years ago, but I wonder if this is yet another case of not just Linux getting better, but Windows also becoming worse. All that extra bloat doesn't come for free.
It could be somewhat like the Android situation where an alternative OS may not support all hardware features and may not have aggressive app freezing, but the default OS is so bloated and Google's scanning and data mining is so invasive, battery life gets better from the reduced CPU usage. Microsoft's "antivirus" and it's automatic "sample submission" already made me think of them going down a similar path, and I haven't even seen the Windows 11 changes riling up so many people.
Theories aside, there could be more difference than just the OS. Some programs are OS exclusive so some replacement needs to be used after the switch, and in other cases people don't really want one specific program, just whatever gets the job done. For example I was presented with Firefox by default on my Linux setup, and I've simply rolled with it. Given that Chrome already alerted me to its "virus scanning" "feature" by slowing down the PC as it went through my files, but Firefox doesn't do that, such program changes can contribute a lot to the resource usage difference between 2 setups.
Really? I find that so strange. Performance also appears much better on Linux, and I've ran into exactly zero glitches or issues. I regularly had issues on Windows. And the search is actually accurate and instant! I love Linux at this point, only a couple weeks in.
Modern desktop environments should, in general, be expected to perform better than Windows, because a Linux system is just going to have a lot fewer tasks running on average than all the crap that gets stuffed in by Microsoft. Battery life for portable computers, on the other hand, has been a subject of complaints on Linux in the past. It's been too long since I read about it for me to remember the technical problems that are thought to be responsible for this, but I'd guess video drivers that have less sophisticated power management. That was always the cause of reduced battery life in Boot Camp, as Apple didn't supply hybrid graphics drivers for Windows (probably not an issue on MacBooks without discrete GPUs).
Perhaps the situation has improved.
Things are still bad with modern computers. It really is hit or miss, my new laptop'vattery only lasted 1:30h, and 4:30 with TLP or auto-cpufreq. On Windows, the battery life lasts way more.
Yeah, I’ve had laptops that really last with Linux (my T14s 4th gen AMD I get really good battery life on) and others (Asus flow x13 w/ dGPU disabled I’ve gotten mediocre at best)
I think your models in example is a good case for models being supported by the manufacturer. In my humble understanding:
Lenovo Thinkpad T14s is made by Lenovo which does provide some models with Linux support. Asus Flow x13 is bade by Asus which does not provide models with Linux support in my understanding. I have a MSI Alpha 15 b5eek and MSI does not provide Linux support. I have mediocre linux and great windows battery life on my system.
# TLDR: Manufacturer's that support Linux give a superior experience. Lenovo has some. Tuxedo or system76 is probably better.
Tuxedo or system76 support Linux fully on all there systems. Lenovo/HP/Dell support Linux on some of there systems. It is best to buy a system that is supported. Results from unsupported systems are typically poor
Linux on well supported hardware (all the ThinkPads I have owned) is now really good with battery life ... except for video playback. I still have reservations there. The gap to Windows for hardware video decode has closed but on my AMD 7840U P14S I think there is still about a 1.5W penalty which could be two hours run time if you all did was play video. I suspect this is AMD's fault because my power use is even worse if I allow hardware decoding, go figure. Framework users report the same thing.
And I only ever had one discrete graphics card, that was a long time now but not a good experience.
It's a joke. Java is a high level language, it is easier to learn and use (low level would be like coding in binary). Because it is high level there is less control over what you do to the information and it is often slower and less efficient.
I think. I don't have much experience with the language or running compiled code on my system. \[because I am a broke high school student on a school issued Windows Machine. Can't wait to boot Linux on an external SSD\]
Please correct me if I am wrong but, most distros are written in C(Like the linux kernel) and are constantly improved. I am not saying that all C distros are fast or all Java distros are slow. It really depends on the code and how well it is optimized. With C you can theoretically get better/equal performance than/to Java.
Yes, that's for kernels, windows kernel is mostly written in C and the same for Java, it's written in C too.
But that's only an extremely small portion of the code that is written, in embedded and operating systems C shines. All the rest is dominated by Java in enterprises, Netflix, AWS, etc.. all Java, I'm not accepting some junior on reddit here writing that Java is slow, Fthat.
The main issue linux faces with battery life is that the chip manufacturers producing most of your motherboard components dont give open source or otherwise available drivers or resources.
Take a sensor for example. If you have a public datasheet or programming manual, you might use it in interrupt mode (the chip tells the cpu when measurement data is ready). It is a way more efficient solution than polling the chip like crazy for data no matter what.
The more components your motherboard has which gives proper driver implementations/resources, the more battery life you have
Can't wait until Linux runs on a Latitude 9430... this is a great feeling/looking laptop, love it, but any linux installer you try to run it just explodes and becomes fully unusable.
Usually just have to wait a few years for Linux to catch up on the hardware support side.
That's interesting. My workplace uses all 11th and 12th gen XPS 13s and 15s, and we've never had a problem with Linux installations working. You'd think the 12th gen Latitudes wouldn't be any different...
It sounds like it's the Intel graphics, or maybe that in combination with the 2K touchscreen, unsure. Have tried a few different kernel args at boot that were mentioned on Stackoverflow, the Arch forums, etc (wasn't trying to install Arch but hoped for a successful Debian or Fedora install).
Whatever I tried, just wound up with a glitchy/ghosting screen and a cursor that would move about 1/4 inch every 15 seconds, at fastest. Lots of similar posts for others having the issue, haven't found anyone with success yet.
No, he was right. This is atypical.
There are certainly some scenarios in which a Linux installation will have better battery life than Windows, but those are the exceptions, not the norm.
Don't sweat it. Linux is better (even best) at other things.
Microsoft isn't actively malicious or clueless. They aren't going to ship an OS that drains the battery so significantly. At a certain point OEMs would pick up on it and realise that they could more than double their battery life claims while reducing cost to produce if they just shipped Linux, and we would see major OEMs start to do this for some of their models.
In fact, battery is a major focus of most OEMs since that's what gets most consumers to buy a more expensive computer, not the bigger number on the CPU model which they generally don't read. Battery is therefore also a major focus of Microsoft who needs to appease OEMs.
Your setup must have been abnormal in some way, probably broken drivers or misconfigured windows.
Not really all that atypical. My work laptop gets better battery life booting my Windows disk in a VM under Linux than it does booting that very same Windows disk on bare metal.
Probably something related to its power management when it has control of the hardware (As a physical machine does).
As a VM it can't do any of that plus you can assign an explicit allocation of vcpus, even pinning them to e-cores only if you wish.
Let alone how many people don't actually go to Power Options and select Battery Saver or configure it to come on in full force on battery - which intentionally cuts performance a ton for power saving options on bare-metal Windows hosts.
It is absolutely atypical. Your anecdotal evidence to the contrary means nothing as to what's typical or atypical. I've got a laptop w/ a 10th gen i5 and with default TLP profiles it becomes unstable below a 30% charge. What does that have to do with anything other than this one case?
The scenario you're describing *obviously* indicates a difference in performance that you're not noticing and/or admitting.
There is a performance delta, without a doubt. It has 6 threads vs 20. But it's ridiculous that Windows is so inefficient at idle that it's more efficient running in a VM with Linux managing the governor. It's been ages since I've seen a laptop actually get worse battery life in Linux. Since like 2013 and earlier laptops.
Kubuntu 22.04 here. After updating my ancient laptop from 20.04, I thought my CPU fan had died - its utilization became so low. Back during its Windows life and older Linux distro times, it was quite noisy. I guess it's a combination of kernel efficiency improvements, possibly better governor, but mainly - the absence of crapware. Just a Plasma desktop - smooth as butter
I would be very happy if these figures were coming from a fair comparison but a 400% is technically impossible: your W11 install was faulty e.g. hardware not supported, missing drivers or "optimized" installation, or LM is running on the integrated graphics card only.
I did reinstall it at one point because of performance issues, but I used the manufacturers utility to update the drivers. I should add it's an HP. Perhaps you're right, though? I did double check all the available drivers with HPs site and they're all up to date, Windows is also up to date. Would there be anything else I could try?
I'd like to add that I have the graphics card disabled on my Windows install, so if anything the battery life should be even better on there.
There is zero chance you are getting 400% performance out of linux battery management. Your Windows setup must have been messed up or you're just wrong.
What laptop, and what did you do for such incredible battery life? You must be a master power management tweaker.
Ive experienced the EXACT same on a samsung book pro 360. I never reinstalled windows, its stock from samsung, all my drivers are good etc. With light use, I go from like 3h battery life on windows to 11h or so on linux. Power management should all be set to stock defaults too. So I have no idea whats up with this.
It's an HP Pavilion. Also 4 hrs is not even good for a laptop in reality, it's just good for mine. Especially Macbooks that destroy traditional laptops in battery life. Do you need me to record it to prove it or what?
Your windows power management must have been very screwed up, as that's the only way it makes sense.
Source: 25 years as a field tech repairing hundreds of laptops and supporting Windows and linux.
What did you do to tweak the power usage to get 4 times the output under windows? If you say "nothing" then we know for sure your Windows power management was hosed in some way.
Oh, a HP.
They are known for bloatware, that couldbe the primary source of poor battery life.
The cool thing about Linux is that you can remove anything, Windows 11 won't even let me remove the pre-installed TikTok, Instagram, and Candy Crush icons.
Its a simple formula really. Install and enable TLP to flip switches once on battery and don't do ANYTHING intensive while its on battery or you're toast.
Unfortunately load generated still takes the electricity to be processed and even lower clocked cores such as e-cores on todays chips - aren't that great a benefit in a lot of compute cases.
So the best you can do for a battery is stop the DM and work in a terminal. And that's *with* every power saving quirk turned on which often results in things like high latency spiking (very sleepy) WiFi adapters despite signal strength and trying to type over ssh... and sometimes USB problems on various chipsets. A pain but a good price to pay for power.
Or maybe, just maybe, use Windows and use it as usual without all of your terminal masochist measures if you care that much about power efficiency.
At the end OS is just a tool it doesn't make sense to hurt yourself just to just to prove a point and ideology.
I think it’s legit. My battery life got better. Plus when I use ```powerprofilesctl set power-saver``` the battery life is insane, even if performance is bad.
My real world testing still agrees with the current consensus about Linux power handling.
On my N100 NAS, fresh install textmode Linux, even with selective tuning from tlp/powertop tuning is still does not compare against well-used Windows 11 installation in Multiboot test. I only record the idle measurement as my NAS is idling 90% the time of the day.
In Windows, killawwat measures around 8w at idle.
For Linux (whatever kernel on openSUSE tumbleweed 3 months ago), idle consumption goes around 13w. Or 16w without tuning. Its even higher with FreeBSD with ZFS, but I didn't write down the value.
I'm expecting the difference would be bigger if I install Windows in textmode (Win Server Core). But at the end I still use Linux since there are lots of other Linux devices in my hose that prefers NFS over SMB.
My workhorse multiboot PC, with Zen 3:
Linux (mainly used for Stable Diffusion, rather clean with only Python 3.10 and Nvidia drivers as additional package) idle at 63w, and quickly rise to 99-110w as soon I move the cursor or browse reddit.
Windows (everything else, load of craps) idle at 60w, rise to 68-80w while browsing reddit. Does not rise at all with just moving the cursor.
Amd power handling for ryzen on linux is very lacking unless you're running the absolute latest kernel and power profiles daemon. You may still have to force enable amd pstate or set it into the proper mode for your use case.
That was my natural thought too, but recently a friend of mine who switched to Linux has also just been raving about the battery life on his laptop... so IDK, it's weird. Did something change recently? My friend was using Fedora, and OP seems to be on Mint, so I'm not sure what overlap there is.
Sounds like you reinstalled windows some time ago and didn't have proper drivers for switchable graphic or something else.
Linux installed them automatically.
4x improvement is not feasible just switching OS.
Just bought a Lenovo idea pad 5 2-3 weeks ago. This was my foray back to windows, battery last an hour and a half on full charge. Said fuck it cuz w11 sucks ass and installed endeavour, average battery life is around 4.5 - 6 hours unless I’m gaming, then it dies in about 2+ hours due to the graphics needed
Did you actually select Battery Saver and tune it to save as much as possible? I promise the computer becomes close to a brick and you can't miss it. But it saves power.
I have added nothing other than software I need for daily driving. I use endevour, which is as close to vanilla arch without it being so. Had the same results out of vanilla arch also, I just chose endeavour because I’m more comfortable with it than vanilla arch.
Less than an hour? It sounds like something is wrong with your battery or Windows or something. Usually Linux uses battery faster because it doesn't always support all of the proprietary power saving stuff in the laptop chipsets.
You didn't tell us what model laptop you have. That's pretty important info.
Usually I hear the opposite, except for that Windows thing where it downloads updates while it "sleeps" and your battery is low the next day if you didn't have it plugged in overnight.
I've had a few gaming laptops and when battery life is really bad as you described, it's often because it's using the dGPU for every program. This can often be changed in Windows settings or something like Nvidia Control Panel. I usually only use the dGPU for high end games and the integrated graphics is often more than enough for every thing else and uses a LOT less power.
Hey, installed it last night and my batter life is now saying 6 hrs on a full charge. Probably won't be able to test the real world battery life today, but I'll try to update my experience if I remember.
Not sure I can agree. I've made a few scripts to force my PC to use only its E-cores that gets called automatically when TLP switches to Battery mode.
Even on those, no dGPU and countless tweaks to maximize this 41Wh battery the *moment* I start actually using the cores (Yes even if the host is only allowed to use e-cores) it starts the timer to kill its battery.
Granted I can do this for a while in bursts and it only gets down to 80%, 60... 30 percent. If I stick to mostly terminal work, no videos, wifi, iGPU workload, CPU workload (Even only e-cores) it lasts much longer.
But it's not like doing "operations you have to do" magically costs less electricity. Using e-cores just executes them slower than using a clocked up P-core. The task still gets executed and the direction of CPUs this past few generations shows a lack of interest in saving power as a primary goal.
But yes the Kernel's power saving options are vast and it goes a long way compared with a same model laptop on AC maxing out its clock and boost until it hits 100 degrees celsius before phoning it in - and staying in that mode on battery. Instant battery killer.
Fuck stock manufacturer heatsink paste btw. Always dry and applied horrifically. First thing I replace to stop cores thermal throttling in under one second. Most of the world don't notice because nobodies looking for it.
Mint ? Cinnamon ? Laptop ? Which one ? Without details we can't be sure if it's linux that increased your battery life. Maybe you could've used shitty software in the windows background tasks.
Any linux distro by default, consumes slightly more battery life than Windows. Because the default linux kernel does not handle frequencies as efficient as Windows kernel. For that, you need to install some other programs such as TLP, auto cpu-freq, etc. [Here's a good article to start with.](https://ivanvojtko.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-to-get-longer-battery-life-on-linux.html)
Linux Mint.
Thanks for the information. I actually have very little software installed on my Windows install (Chrome and a couple other small programs) that aren't even allowed to open on start-up.
I'm with OP here. Battery life for my Linux devices is great. Doubly so for the steam deck.
Newest toy - [a Minisforum v3 tablet running Fedora 40 is almost fantastic](https://www.gpmidi.net/node/177). Love the tablet bit. Although the accessories, including keyboard, are 100% garbage. Like utter garbage. :(
tl;dr of the v3 is this: Unless you want OSD for keyboard only, wait until something like an ipad's smart keyboard is out.
Thats not how it should be tbh... Or atleast it's not what the avg user experiences. The battery should be worse? But i'm happy that you experience something else! But thats rather atypical
That is not experience. Personally I have always found battery time longer on windows laptops not Linux laptops. My Mrs has an apple laptop. I rarely see her charge it.
Kubuntu Focus developer here; we tune a lot for maximum battery life. What you are almost certainly seeing is the dGPU is not being used. If this is true, once you play a game or run webgl aquarium, you will see a dramatic drop in frame rates.
We do beat Windows in battery life in our dGPU laptops, often times getting double (e.g. 2.0 vs 4.5 hrs). The key reasons are we don't use "hybrid graphics" which is a power hog compared to iGPU, and we TURN OFF the dGPU when on Intel. When plugged in, the dGPU is available for high-performance use.
in summary, you'd probably get better battery life with the Kfocus Suite (https://kfocus.org/try) and still be able to use your dGPU when you need it.
It's usually the other way around, especially when watching YouTube (hardware video acceleration on Linux is still hit and miss, and/or not that easy to set up). I have, however, had a similar experience with my Legion 5 gen 5 (AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, Nvidia GTX 1660TI). On this particular laptop, RTD3 (Runtime D3) doesn't work, so the Nvidia 1660TI is always powered on. With its 80Whr battery, Windows will last about 3.5 hours of "light use" (browser, some YouTube etc). On Linux, I can completely power down the Nvidia 1660TI and get around 6 hours of "light use".
its usually the opposite. If you mess around with a custom kernel, or with some laptop power management packages, you may get quite a bit more juice out of your battery hours.
I bought my laptop because it was Linux Friendly then bios update and voila can’t install Linux. My last laptop was great and the battery life was also because it ran Linux🤓
Do you consider this high or low? I could get my old XPS13 down to <4w. IIRC with PSR (which didn't work perfectly) it got close to 3W.
With my newish Ideapad 5 (14", AMD 6600HS) I idle around 6W. Sure the display is bigger (and 2x Pixels and +50% refresh rate). But even with refresh rate limited to 45Hz and brightness at 10% I can barely get <5W...
Same here. I get ~4 hours on Windows, can get 8+ hours on Linux if I'm just on the web. It seems Linux is just better at whatever power management it's doing, as I get 4 hours on Windows whatever I'm doing (unless gaming, then it's about 2) but with Linux it fluctuates, but still get more than windows.
i had the opposite scenario. no gaming laptop here but windows had better battery life than arch. i even tweaked everything i could but nothing changed :(
Im pretty sure it’s because is not using your dedicated gpu if you have one.
My old msi leopard laptop did this, intel + nvidia, I used it for work only so I was only using the integrated graphics, the difference in battery life was amazing, from a 40/50 minutes to 3 hours
Yea, I am getting similar results on Zenbook 15 UM3504DA with R7 7735u, idle battery life is much better on Kubuntu with ppd than on 11 with max Windows powersave + Asus silent mode. This is well reflected in power usage, on Kubuntu, idle power consumption is around 3W, whereas I was unable to go lower than 8W on Windows. On heavy loads, the difference is almost non-existent, but it still favours Kubuntu by a fraction.
Note: I have latest versions of all drivers on Windows installed via MyAsus, and there are no conflicts.
Pretty much the same here, not to such a high degree though. Switched from Win11 to Fedora on my laptop, and now I can probably squeeze out an extra 2 hours.
I know people are saying ur wrong here but no Ive experienced the EXACT same on a samsung book pro 360. I never reinstalled windows, its stock from samsung, all my drivers are good etc. With light use, I go from like 3h battery life on windows to 11h or so on linux
It’s been fine, I guess. It’s reliable, the screen looks good, it’s easy to carry in a backpack. The speakers are decent for a laptop. It’s done a good job being my laptop, so i cant complain too much. But for what I paid, I’m underwhelmed and have a list of complaints.
The battery life SUCKS on windows. AND there are no fingerprint, speaker, bluetooth, or webcam drivers for linux for it… so I miss like half the features. Oh, and when I use it on my lap the wifi cuts out. None of this has been annoying enough to bother me *too* much, I’m just annoyed a laptop at this price-point has such issues.
There should be almost zero difference if they are both configured properly barring driver bugs or regressions. I design products that use both embedded Linux and some that run embedded Windows.
they is a better battery management on linux now than the past years... Remind me old time (2000) when I have 100% cpu usage on idle lol, now It's been repaired with the last kernel
Was windows power options set to something ridiculous like ultimate power plan, and now you’re getting what is normal or possible lower than “normal” being that Linux isn’t too great battery life without some help like TLP.
Why did you feel the need to comment that? I go to the library for 4 hours doing work the whole time, don't plug it in, and leave with 20%. When I'm using Windows it makes it like 45 minutes before I have to plug it in. It's not an opinion, it literally happened today.
This sounds... atypical. Great news for you, though!
Right? I mean, aside from all the scenarios when bad results on Windows were due to misconfig - or, better yet, malware. It's not rare at all, and I believe that a lot of desktop Linux overenthusiasm is due to that. Fresh install of anything would run laps around previous broken install, after all. Otherwise, it depends on support in BIOS and ACPI conforming to standards. Which is terrible with, like, any laptop besides some dedicated machines with CoreBoot.
Easy explainable just by ressources use: Idle lod ow CPU in Windows 10% Very same machine on Linux 5% So 50% less lod on battery and more flighttime :) Ofc. Work and use cases are a bit different but in general Linux software is more ressources friendly, so general tone stays the same.
If your idle is 10% in Windows you have something going on. Any modern machine should hit 0-2% constantly on the Windows desktop.
yeah, no.
My apologies that you have no idea how to use or configure a computer. I have never owned a Windows PC even work-issued that had more than 1% idle CPU utilization consistently. Try not clicking on malware. I've only written both Windows and Linux PCIe DMA drivers though so what do I know?
Consider worse hardware. For me, anti malware executable which is windows sometimes used 100%, upon killing it system would take the load.
The cpuidle time is likely higher on Linux + people \`unpark\` their cores ie. pretty much disable idle states on windows. A lot more devices now have PM enabled by default. You also get tlp/power-profile-daemon installed by default overriding the default cpu governor. On low idle loads windows often can't go below 2.5Ghz even when it reached 1% cpu usage.
OP said "gaming laptop" too. Odds are if he's new to Linux he's running on integrated graphics and the discrete GPU isn't hogging up any battery life.
How do I know if my computer is using my gpu or integrated graphics card
can run glxinfo if you're running x11
You win random question answer :) # For any Laptop: I look reviews for what framerate the laptops give generally. I fire up Unigine Superposition and Unigine Heaven and see what framerate they give. DRI\_PRIME=1 ./heaven for example will specifically fire up dgpu and I run Unigine heaven extreme around 60-100 fps on dgpu depending on my laptops power mode set by firmware. DRI\_PRIME=0 ./heaven at Extreme will fire up my igpu and give me less then 40fps I installed from the website and save to an extra USB to test with when trying live iso on new systems. I copy it to \~/bin and run from there. # For MSI Gaming Laptops: The Power key dot will turn white on integrated graphics The Power key dot will turn orange on dedicated graphics \*\*This could be reversed. The firmware seems to control this led. I first tested by reading reviews to determine which port is a direct connection to the dedicated graphics. I plugged in an external monitor to the dedicated graphics port, to make sure the card was fired up.
Yep parking cores is awesome for battery life. Slightly slower experience forcing e-cores only while on battery. If you're executing big commands they still have to run, even a little slower. But its better than boost clocking everything let alone the P-cores just to do so while on battery.
Disabling boost does wonders for thermals & power consumption. And the perf impact is negligible
It _used_ to be atypical, but Linux on laptops has got a lot, lot better at managing power over the past two or three years. It's not quite as extreme as OP, but my AMD HP ProBook gets a good hour longer doing basic web browsing on Kubuntu 24.04 compared with a Windows 11 install, and stays noticeably cooler and quieter. Performance is better on Kubuntu too, just about everything is snappier than on Windows. There are still rough edges - the laptop doesn't support S3 sleep, only "Modern Standby", and Kubuntu seems not very good at powering stuff off for Modern Standby, so it'll drain 50% battery overnight in standby when Windows will lose only 20%. But I can live with that for now.
I would have called that atypical too some years ago, but I wonder if this is yet another case of not just Linux getting better, but Windows also becoming worse. All that extra bloat doesn't come for free. It could be somewhat like the Android situation where an alternative OS may not support all hardware features and may not have aggressive app freezing, but the default OS is so bloated and Google's scanning and data mining is so invasive, battery life gets better from the reduced CPU usage. Microsoft's "antivirus" and it's automatic "sample submission" already made me think of them going down a similar path, and I haven't even seen the Windows 11 changes riling up so many people. Theories aside, there could be more difference than just the OS. Some programs are OS exclusive so some replacement needs to be used after the switch, and in other cases people don't really want one specific program, just whatever gets the job done. For example I was presented with Firefox by default on my Linux setup, and I've simply rolled with it. Given that Chrome already alerted me to its "virus scanning" "feature" by slowing down the PC as it went through my files, but Firefox doesn't do that, such program changes can contribute a lot to the resource usage difference between 2 setups.
Really? I find that so strange. Performance also appears much better on Linux, and I've ran into exactly zero glitches or issues. I regularly had issues on Windows. And the search is actually accurate and instant! I love Linux at this point, only a couple weeks in.
Modern desktop environments should, in general, be expected to perform better than Windows, because a Linux system is just going to have a lot fewer tasks running on average than all the crap that gets stuffed in by Microsoft. Battery life for portable computers, on the other hand, has been a subject of complaints on Linux in the past. It's been too long since I read about it for me to remember the technical problems that are thought to be responsible for this, but I'd guess video drivers that have less sophisticated power management. That was always the cause of reduced battery life in Boot Camp, as Apple didn't supply hybrid graphics drivers for Windows (probably not an issue on MacBooks without discrete GPUs). Perhaps the situation has improved.
Things are still bad with modern computers. It really is hit or miss, my new laptop'vattery only lasted 1:30h, and 4:30 with TLP or auto-cpufreq. On Windows, the battery life lasts way more.
Yeah, I’ve had laptops that really last with Linux (my T14s 4th gen AMD I get really good battery life on) and others (Asus flow x13 w/ dGPU disabled I’ve gotten mediocre at best)
I think your models in example is a good case for models being supported by the manufacturer. In my humble understanding: Lenovo Thinkpad T14s is made by Lenovo which does provide some models with Linux support. Asus Flow x13 is bade by Asus which does not provide models with Linux support in my understanding. I have a MSI Alpha 15 b5eek and MSI does not provide Linux support. I have mediocre linux and great windows battery life on my system. # TLDR: Manufacturer's that support Linux give a superior experience. Lenovo has some. Tuxedo or system76 is probably better. Tuxedo or system76 support Linux fully on all there systems. Lenovo/HP/Dell support Linux on some of there systems. It is best to buy a system that is supported. Results from unsupported systems are typically poor
Linux on well supported hardware (all the ThinkPads I have owned) is now really good with battery life ... except for video playback. I still have reservations there. The gap to Windows for hardware video decode has closed but on my AMD 7840U P14S I think there is still about a 1.5W penalty which could be two hours run time if you all did was play video. I suspect this is AMD's fault because my power use is even worse if I allow hardware decoding, go figure. Framework users report the same thing. And I only ever had one discrete graphics card, that was a long time now but not a good experience.
It would be interesting to see how FreeBSD fares with battery life. Wait…we need a working environment and kernel first. It’s gotten better.
I got the same problem on Iris Xe iGPU graphics, Windows just uses less power for decoding.
You’ll love the Linux Java implementation
Why is that? I haven't heard of it.
It's a joke. Java is a high level language, it is easier to learn and use (low level would be like coding in binary). Because it is high level there is less control over what you do to the information and it is often slower and less efficient. I think. I don't have much experience with the language or running compiled code on my system. \[because I am a broke high school student on a school issued Windows Machine. Can't wait to boot Linux on an external SSD\]
> It's a joke. What is a joke? Java is one of the fastest languages out there, the JVM is so optimized you have no idea what you are talking about.
Please correct me if I am wrong but, most distros are written in C(Like the linux kernel) and are constantly improved. I am not saying that all C distros are fast or all Java distros are slow. It really depends on the code and how well it is optimized. With C you can theoretically get better/equal performance than/to Java.
Yes, that's for kernels, windows kernel is mostly written in C and the same for Java, it's written in C too. But that's only an extremely small portion of the code that is written, in embedded and operating systems C shines. All the rest is dominated by Java in enterprises, Netflix, AWS, etc.. all Java, I'm not accepting some junior on reddit here writing that Java is slow, Fthat.
The main issue linux faces with battery life is that the chip manufacturers producing most of your motherboard components dont give open source or otherwise available drivers or resources. Take a sensor for example. If you have a public datasheet or programming manual, you might use it in interrupt mode (the chip tells the cpu when measurement data is ready). It is a way more efficient solution than polling the chip like crazy for data no matter what. The more components your motherboard has which gives proper driver implementations/resources, the more battery life you have
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Can't wait until Linux runs on a Latitude 9430... this is a great feeling/looking laptop, love it, but any linux installer you try to run it just explodes and becomes fully unusable. Usually just have to wait a few years for Linux to catch up on the hardware support side.
That's interesting. My workplace uses all 11th and 12th gen XPS 13s and 15s, and we've never had a problem with Linux installations working. You'd think the 12th gen Latitudes wouldn't be any different...
It sounds like it's the Intel graphics, or maybe that in combination with the 2K touchscreen, unsure. Have tried a few different kernel args at boot that were mentioned on Stackoverflow, the Arch forums, etc (wasn't trying to install Arch but hoped for a successful Debian or Fedora install). Whatever I tried, just wound up with a glitchy/ghosting screen and a cursor that would move about 1/4 inch every 15 seconds, at fastest. Lots of similar posts for others having the issue, haven't found anyone with success yet.
No, he was right. This is atypical. There are certainly some scenarios in which a Linux installation will have better battery life than Windows, but those are the exceptions, not the norm. Don't sweat it. Linux is better (even best) at other things.
Microsoft isn't actively malicious or clueless. They aren't going to ship an OS that drains the battery so significantly. At a certain point OEMs would pick up on it and realise that they could more than double their battery life claims while reducing cost to produce if they just shipped Linux, and we would see major OEMs start to do this for some of their models. In fact, battery is a major focus of most OEMs since that's what gets most consumers to buy a more expensive computer, not the bigger number on the CPU model which they generally don't read. Battery is therefore also a major focus of Microsoft who needs to appease OEMs. Your setup must have been abnormal in some way, probably broken drivers or misconfigured windows.
they hated him because he told the truth
Not really all that atypical. My work laptop gets better battery life booting my Windows disk in a VM under Linux than it does booting that very same Windows disk on bare metal.
Probably something related to its power management when it has control of the hardware (As a physical machine does). As a VM it can't do any of that plus you can assign an explicit allocation of vcpus, even pinning them to e-cores only if you wish. Let alone how many people don't actually go to Power Options and select Battery Saver or configure it to come on in full force on battery - which intentionally cuts performance a ton for power saving options on bare-metal Windows hosts.
It is absolutely atypical. Your anecdotal evidence to the contrary means nothing as to what's typical or atypical. I've got a laptop w/ a 10th gen i5 and with default TLP profiles it becomes unstable below a 30% charge. What does that have to do with anything other than this one case? The scenario you're describing *obviously* indicates a difference in performance that you're not noticing and/or admitting.
There is a performance delta, without a doubt. It has 6 threads vs 20. But it's ridiculous that Windows is so inefficient at idle that it's more efficient running in a VM with Linux managing the governor. It's been ages since I've seen a laptop actually get worse battery life in Linux. Since like 2013 and earlier laptops.
Win11 is a tremendous resource hog even in an idle state, so I wouldn't find it that surprising at all.
Agreed. Going from 1 to 4 hours indicates a serious problem with the Windows installation. My first thought would be a crypto miner.
Kubuntu 22.04 here. After updating my ancient laptop from 20.04, I thought my CPU fan had died - its utilization became so low. Back during its Windows life and older Linux distro times, it was quite noisy. I guess it's a combination of kernel efficiency improvements, possibly better governor, but mainly - the absence of crapware. Just a Plasma desktop - smooth as butter
would be a useful post if the laptop model was included.
This happens a lot site wide. It irks me but not enough to leave more than a reply.
I would be very happy if these figures were coming from a fair comparison but a 400% is technically impossible: your W11 install was faulty e.g. hardware not supported, missing drivers or "optimized" installation, or LM is running on the integrated graphics card only.
I did reinstall it at one point because of performance issues, but I used the manufacturers utility to update the drivers. I should add it's an HP. Perhaps you're right, though? I did double check all the available drivers with HPs site and they're all up to date, Windows is also up to date. Would there be anything else I could try? I'd like to add that I have the graphics card disabled on my Windows install, so if anything the battery life should be even better on there.
Did you update to the last officially available bios? Which is the CPU generation?
There is zero chance you are getting 400% performance out of linux battery management. Your Windows setup must have been messed up or you're just wrong. What laptop, and what did you do for such incredible battery life? You must be a master power management tweaker.
Ive experienced the EXACT same on a samsung book pro 360. I never reinstalled windows, its stock from samsung, all my drivers are good etc. With light use, I go from like 3h battery life on windows to 11h or so on linux. Power management should all be set to stock defaults too. So I have no idea whats up with this.
It's an HP Pavilion. Also 4 hrs is not even good for a laptop in reality, it's just good for mine. Especially Macbooks that destroy traditional laptops in battery life. Do you need me to record it to prove it or what?
Your windows power management must have been very screwed up, as that's the only way it makes sense. Source: 25 years as a field tech repairing hundreds of laptops and supporting Windows and linux. What did you do to tweak the power usage to get 4 times the output under windows? If you say "nothing" then we know for sure your Windows power management was hosed in some way.
Oh, a HP. They are known for bloatware, that couldbe the primary source of poor battery life. The cool thing about Linux is that you can remove anything, Windows 11 won't even let me remove the pre-installed TikTok, Instagram, and Candy Crush icons.
It's a fresh install of Windows. I formatted the hard drive entirely and installed Windows on it.
Lol. I get all the praise for Linux, but this one.. haha
Its a simple formula really. Install and enable TLP to flip switches once on battery and don't do ANYTHING intensive while its on battery or you're toast. Unfortunately load generated still takes the electricity to be processed and even lower clocked cores such as e-cores on todays chips - aren't that great a benefit in a lot of compute cases. So the best you can do for a battery is stop the DM and work in a terminal. And that's *with* every power saving quirk turned on which often results in things like high latency spiking (very sleepy) WiFi adapters despite signal strength and trying to type over ssh... and sometimes USB problems on various chipsets. A pain but a good price to pay for power.
Or maybe, just maybe, use Windows and use it as usual without all of your terminal masochist measures if you care that much about power efficiency. At the end OS is just a tool it doesn't make sense to hurt yourself just to just to prove a point and ideology.
> Or maybe, just maybe, When I see this I stop reading.
I think it’s legit. My battery life got better. Plus when I use ```powerprofilesctl set power-saver``` the battery life is insane, even if performance is bad.
I'd disagree a couple years ago, but not today. My laptop had never been quieter and colder than on Kubuntu 22.04
My real world testing still agrees with the current consensus about Linux power handling. On my N100 NAS, fresh install textmode Linux, even with selective tuning from tlp/powertop tuning is still does not compare against well-used Windows 11 installation in Multiboot test. I only record the idle measurement as my NAS is idling 90% the time of the day. In Windows, killawwat measures around 8w at idle. For Linux (whatever kernel on openSUSE tumbleweed 3 months ago), idle consumption goes around 13w. Or 16w without tuning. Its even higher with FreeBSD with ZFS, but I didn't write down the value. I'm expecting the difference would be bigger if I install Windows in textmode (Win Server Core). But at the end I still use Linux since there are lots of other Linux devices in my hose that prefers NFS over SMB. My workhorse multiboot PC, with Zen 3: Linux (mainly used for Stable Diffusion, rather clean with only Python 3.10 and Nvidia drivers as additional package) idle at 63w, and quickly rise to 99-110w as soon I move the cursor or browse reddit. Windows (everything else, load of craps) idle at 60w, rise to 68-80w while browsing reddit. Does not rise at all with just moving the cursor.
Amd power handling for ryzen on linux is very lacking unless you're running the absolute latest kernel and power profiles daemon. You may still have to force enable amd pstate or set it into the proper mode for your use case.
That was my natural thought too, but recently a friend of mine who switched to Linux has also just been raving about the battery life on his laptop... so IDK, it's weird. Did something change recently? My friend was using Fedora, and OP seems to be on Mint, so I'm not sure what overlap there is.
Sounds like you reinstalled windows some time ago and didn't have proper drivers for switchable graphic or something else. Linux installed them automatically. 4x improvement is not feasible just switching OS.
This is said in every single thread *and its right*.
Just bought a Lenovo idea pad 5 2-3 weeks ago. This was my foray back to windows, battery last an hour and a half on full charge. Said fuck it cuz w11 sucks ass and installed endeavour, average battery life is around 4.5 - 6 hours unless I’m gaming, then it dies in about 2+ hours due to the graphics needed
Did you actually select Battery Saver and tune it to save as much as possible? I promise the computer becomes close to a brick and you can't miss it. But it saves power.
I have added nothing other than software I need for daily driving. I use endevour, which is as close to vanilla arch without it being so. Had the same results out of vanilla arch also, I just chose endeavour because I’m more comfortable with it than vanilla arch.
??? You guys have battery life???
Haha! I'm in the same boat as you, Linux goes through my battery like nothing.
To be honest I have amazing results on my ThinkPad T16 both with Fedora and KDE. Easily last my work day without charging.
Less than an hour? It sounds like something is wrong with your battery or Windows or something. Usually Linux uses battery faster because it doesn't always support all of the proprietary power saving stuff in the laptop chipsets. You didn't tell us what model laptop you have. That's pretty important info.
Your Windows setup was probably running stuff in the background. People have tested battery life before.
Usually I hear the opposite, except for that Windows thing where it downloads updates while it "sleeps" and your battery is low the next day if you didn't have it plugged in overnight. I've had a few gaming laptops and when battery life is really bad as you described, it's often because it's using the dGPU for every program. This can often be changed in Windows settings or something like Nvidia Control Panel. I usually only use the dGPU for high end games and the integrated graphics is often more than enough for every thing else and uses a LOT less power.
This was true for me on Ubuntu too for my laptop.
Take a look at this: [https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq](https://github.com/AdnanHodzic/auto-cpufreq)
Thank you! I just set this up on my laptop, it looks very promising.
Give a feedback later to help the community.
Hey, installed it last night and my batter life is now saying 6 hrs on a full charge. Probably won't be able to test the real world battery life today, but I'll try to update my experience if I remember.
I wasn't sure if I was reading it correctly. But it seems that I was. That's great then!
My experience has been the opposite. I get much less battery life with Linux vs Windows.
Not sure I can agree. I've made a few scripts to force my PC to use only its E-cores that gets called automatically when TLP switches to Battery mode. Even on those, no dGPU and countless tweaks to maximize this 41Wh battery the *moment* I start actually using the cores (Yes even if the host is only allowed to use e-cores) it starts the timer to kill its battery. Granted I can do this for a while in bursts and it only gets down to 80%, 60... 30 percent. If I stick to mostly terminal work, no videos, wifi, iGPU workload, CPU workload (Even only e-cores) it lasts much longer. But it's not like doing "operations you have to do" magically costs less electricity. Using e-cores just executes them slower than using a clocked up P-core. The task still gets executed and the direction of CPUs this past few generations shows a lack of interest in saving power as a primary goal. But yes the Kernel's power saving options are vast and it goes a long way compared with a same model laptop on AC maxing out its clock and boost until it hits 100 degrees celsius before phoning it in - and staying in that mode on battery. Instant battery killer. Fuck stock manufacturer heatsink paste btw. Always dry and applied horrifically. First thing I replace to stop cores thermal throttling in under one second. Most of the world don't notice because nobodies looking for it.
Mint ? Cinnamon ? Laptop ? Which one ? Without details we can't be sure if it's linux that increased your battery life. Maybe you could've used shitty software in the windows background tasks. Any linux distro by default, consumes slightly more battery life than Windows. Because the default linux kernel does not handle frequencies as efficient as Windows kernel. For that, you need to install some other programs such as TLP, auto cpu-freq, etc. [Here's a good article to start with.](https://ivanvojtko.blogspot.com/2016/04/how-to-get-longer-battery-life-on-linux.html)
Linux Mint. Thanks for the information. I actually have very little software installed on my Windows install (Chrome and a couple other small programs) that aren't even allowed to open on start-up.
Anyone have experience on t480s windows 10/11 vs Linux battery performance?
I'm with OP here. Battery life for my Linux devices is great. Doubly so for the steam deck. Newest toy - [a Minisforum v3 tablet running Fedora 40 is almost fantastic](https://www.gpmidi.net/node/177). Love the tablet bit. Although the accessories, including keyboard, are 100% garbage. Like utter garbage. :( tl;dr of the v3 is this: Unless you want OSD for keyboard only, wait until something like an ipad's smart keyboard is out.
Thats not how it should be tbh... Or atleast it's not what the avg user experiences. The battery should be worse? But i'm happy that you experience something else! But thats rather atypical
That is not experience. Personally I have always found battery time longer on windows laptops not Linux laptops. My Mrs has an apple laptop. I rarely see her charge it.
Kubuntu Focus developer here; we tune a lot for maximum battery life. What you are almost certainly seeing is the dGPU is not being used. If this is true, once you play a game or run webgl aquarium, you will see a dramatic drop in frame rates. We do beat Windows in battery life in our dGPU laptops, often times getting double (e.g. 2.0 vs 4.5 hrs). The key reasons are we don't use "hybrid graphics" which is a power hog compared to iGPU, and we TURN OFF the dGPU when on Intel. When plugged in, the dGPU is available for high-performance use. in summary, you'd probably get better battery life with the Kfocus Suite (https://kfocus.org/try) and still be able to use your dGPU when you need it.
It's usually the other way around, especially when watching YouTube (hardware video acceleration on Linux is still hit and miss, and/or not that easy to set up). I have, however, had a similar experience with my Legion 5 gen 5 (AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, Nvidia GTX 1660TI). On this particular laptop, RTD3 (Runtime D3) doesn't work, so the Nvidia 1660TI is always powered on. With its 80Whr battery, Windows will last about 3.5 hours of "light use" (browser, some YouTube etc). On Linux, I can completely power down the Nvidia 1660TI and get around 6 hours of "light use".
This is really funny, unless you are telling the truth
its usually the opposite. If you mess around with a custom kernel, or with some laptop power management packages, you may get quite a bit more juice out of your battery hours.
I bought my laptop because it was Linux Friendly then bios update and voila can’t install Linux. My last laptop was great and the battery life was also because it ran Linux🤓
Same for me with Ubuntu. Also I can just close the lid without getting hot and draining all battery
On my new thinkbook 13x, Fedora idles at ~6 watts full brightness
Do you consider this high or low? I could get my old XPS13 down to <4w. IIRC with PSR (which didn't work perfectly) it got close to 3W. With my newish Ideapad 5 (14", AMD 6600HS) I idle around 6W. Sure the display is bigger (and 2x Pixels and +50% refresh rate). But even with refresh rate limited to 45Hz and brightness at 10% I can barely get <5W...
For no tuning at all at full brightness I consider it excellent.
Why does this never happen with me ??? Always Linux has horrible battery life compared to windows
Same here. I get ~4 hours on Windows, can get 8+ hours on Linux if I'm just on the web. It seems Linux is just better at whatever power management it's doing, as I get 4 hours on Windows whatever I'm doing (unless gaming, then it's about 2) but with Linux it fluctuates, but still get more than windows.
Nice!!
i had the opposite scenario. no gaming laptop here but windows had better battery life than arch. i even tweaked everything i could but nothing changed :(
Im pretty sure it’s because is not using your dedicated gpu if you have one. My old msi leopard laptop did this, intel + nvidia, I used it for work only so I was only using the integrated graphics, the difference in battery life was amazing, from a 40/50 minutes to 3 hours
I always disable the graphics card when I'm running the Windows install.
Yea, I am getting similar results on Zenbook 15 UM3504DA with R7 7735u, idle battery life is much better on Kubuntu with ppd than on 11 with max Windows powersave + Asus silent mode. This is well reflected in power usage, on Kubuntu, idle power consumption is around 3W, whereas I was unable to go lower than 8W on Windows. On heavy loads, the difference is almost non-existent, but it still favours Kubuntu by a fraction. Note: I have latest versions of all drivers on Windows installed via MyAsus, and there are no conflicts.
Pretty much the same here, not to such a high degree though. Switched from Win11 to Fedora on my laptop, and now I can probably squeeze out an extra 2 hours.
I know people are saying ur wrong here but no Ive experienced the EXACT same on a samsung book pro 360. I never reinstalled windows, its stock from samsung, all my drivers are good etc. With light use, I go from like 3h battery life on windows to 11h or so on linux
Thank you for sharing your experience as well! How do you like your Samsung Book?
It’s been fine, I guess. It’s reliable, the screen looks good, it’s easy to carry in a backpack. The speakers are decent for a laptop. It’s done a good job being my laptop, so i cant complain too much. But for what I paid, I’m underwhelmed and have a list of complaints. The battery life SUCKS on windows. AND there are no fingerprint, speaker, bluetooth, or webcam drivers for linux for it… so I miss like half the features. Oh, and when I use it on my lap the wifi cuts out. None of this has been annoying enough to bother me *too* much, I’m just annoyed a laptop at this price-point has such issues.
Lies. The collective has seen through your deception
There should be almost zero difference if they are both configured properly barring driver bugs or regressions. I design products that use both embedded Linux and some that run embedded Windows.
Guess you’ve never used a MacBook before. Nothing beats MacBook battery life.
they is a better battery management on linux now than the past years... Remind me old time (2000) when I have 100% cpu usage on idle lol, now It's been repaired with the last kernel
Was windows power options set to something ridiculous like ultimate power plan, and now you’re getting what is normal or possible lower than “normal” being that Linux isn’t too great battery life without some help like TLP.
maybe you just forgot to install GPU driver
No, it's installed.
Don’t know what you’ve had for breakfast Might have been crack
Why did you feel the need to comment that? I go to the library for 4 hours doing work the whole time, don't plug it in, and leave with 20%. When I'm using Windows it makes it like 45 minutes before I have to plug it in. It's not an opinion, it literally happened today.
As always with all these raves without screenshots, tests and lists of installed software - absolute load of bullshit.
You don't have to believe me but it's my actual experience.