Which distros are energy efficient? I have a capable desktop, and I mean to push it, but I don’t want to be using energy if it’s not necessary. I’m not looking to rescue an old laptop, for example.

I hear CachyOS is fast. Does that translate to energy efficient?

(Does the OS even matter that much for efficiency?)

  • whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml
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    13 days ago

    Stop reading this thread and buy this thing or something like it.

    There are at least three things in between the wall and what the os tries to do before you start fiddling around in the settings. Did the thing you changed take effect? Did it stay in effect? Is the cpu actually doing what you ask it? Can you even trust what the cpu is reporting back to you? The motherboard?

    Don’t just start fucking around with stuff before you put a watt meter in line. Everything else is just guesswork.

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    There is no such thing in the way you’re imagining it. You can tune any distro to use as little power as possible, but there’s only so much you can do if the hardware platform you’re running isn’t very efficient.

    What are you currently running?

  • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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    14 days ago

    OS matters, linux is probably the most efficient. The distribution matters less. But it also depends on what you want to do. Use it as a desktop?

    As others have said, disable services you don’t need, close programs you aren’t using.

    Actually that does make me think, there might be distros that automatically clean up unused programs and turn down the frequency of the CPU when it’s not in use. Haven’t done a thorough search though.

      • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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        10 days ago

        Those aren’t energy-efficient activities to begin with (except maybe browsing, but bwosers are entire OSes now). I’m not sure how energy-efficient those can be made in the first place.

    • diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de
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      14 days ago

      Turn down the frequency

      Kernel already does.

      Clean up unused programs

      ??? So it would close my IRC client when I look away? Fuck that.

      • onlinepersona@programming.dev
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        14 days ago

        Kernel already does.

        Depends on which governor you have active

        ??? So it would close my IRC client when I look away? Fuck that.

        Don’t be daft. Look at what Android provides.

        • diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de
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          14 days ago

          Depends on which governor

          Default one.

          Android

          That’s also bad, but there’s a difference: developers on Android know about this and do workarounds like keeping a notification open. Because Android is Android, it always has this. No existing program elsewhere is designed around this.

    • staircase@programming.devOP
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      9 days ago

      Here’s the list

      • AMD 9950X
      • Deepcool AK620
      • MSI B850M GAMING PLUS
      • TEAMGROUP 2x32GB DDR5-6000 CL38 Memory
      • KIOXIA EXCERIA PLUS G4 2TB PCIe 5.0 SSD
      • AMD 9060XT 16GB GPU
      • Jonsbo D32 PRO MESH MicroATX Case
      • Corsair SF850 PSU
      • 3x ARCTIC P12 120mm Fan
      • 1x ARCTIC P14 140mm Fan
      • whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml
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        10 days ago

        Probably unplug three of those fans and block off the case openings to get some sort of laminar flow.

        Switch to a more efficient power supply. Yours is platinum but it may be worth it to look into a list of low standby power units.

        Maybe take out half your ram. It probably doesn’t matter though, I’m thinking about the need for lpddr to get past the 1tb barrier on old servers.

        The b850 boards will have efficiency settings in the bios that will make the biggest difference.

        Before you change anything though I would recommend first putting a watt meter inline and measuring.

        Theres a bunch of stuff you can manually do in software but its fractions of a percent and makes your experience very nonstandard.

        The biggest thing is probably gonna be turning off the computer when you’re not using it. It’s not like you’re gonna be spinning down a bunch of hdds…

        • staircase@programming.devOP
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          9 days ago

          Thanks but not considering hardware adjustments. I’ll look at the bios board efficiency, turning it off, and the wall meter thing