Less Watts: Intel's Power Saving Initiative for Linux
At its own Intel Developer Forum (IDF) the semiconductor manufacturer introduced its power saving initiative. Under the Less Watts umbrella a number of Open Source projects have joined forces to help reduce the power consumption of Linux systems.
The Powertop tool has found a new home on the page; it was released by Intel this summer. Powertop tracks down processes that unnecessarily wake up the CPU. The culprits include the kernel's tickless timer. The Tickless Idle kernel patch disables the ticker when the CPU is inactive and in idle mode.
The Linux Battery Life Toolkit (BLTK) is a test framework that generates system load and collects power consumption statistics. This will help developers check the effectiveness of their modifications. Six scenarios are provided as test workloads: idle, document view, office, DVD play, software development and 3D games.
There are also projects that aim to teach applications on Linux how to save power by means of advanced power management, and that provide Linux support for the power saving features provided by Intel's contemporary and future chips.
Representatives by Linux companies such as Red Hat, Novell and Oracle announced that they will be supporting the Less Watts while at the same time emphasizing the fact that their own products do offer power management features.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.