light linux for laptop

[jum1]

Hi,
Im looking for a distribution of linux that would ideally manage very well the consumption of my laptop and be light in a soft use (internet mainly). I need an internet browser mainly and some light tools to program.
is Xubuntu a good idea ? how much would I enhance the duration of my battery ?

regards

[jayd512]

Hello and Welcome!

What type of laptop do you have? Could you post some info about it?
If you're looking for light on resources, then Xubuntu might do you well. If you have something a little lighter in mind, have a look at Puppy or antiX.

[rokytnji]

be light in a soft use (internet mainly

As light as I know of is
BrowserLinux

[jum1]

Hello and Welcome!

What type of laptop do you have? Could you post some info about it?
If you're looking for light on resources, then Xubuntu might do you well. If you have something a little lighter in mind, have a look at

13" / pentium dual core 2GHz / Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD / 1Go RAM

As light as I know of is

looks nice! Im gonna try it I think.


Basically I would like to go on internet, watch movies (series), develop basic C++. I want someting light in order to increase the time on battery

[GNU-Fan]

Basically I would like to go on internet, watch movies (series), develop basic C++. I want someting light in order to increase the time on battery

This may be counterintuitive, but using a very small Distribution will probably result in more power consumption.

Why is this?
Well, the laptop manufacturers today build in ample features to manage the power consumption of individual parts. Frequency stepping on demand for the CPU, fan throttle control, suspend of HD+WiFi, etc.

All these things need support in software in order to work intelligently. If there is no support, the hardware may run full throttle all the time. A small distribution may not provide all necessary kernel modules and userspace applets. Not to mention the tools to investigate power consumption over time.

That said, I think XUbuntu is a good choice for Laptops and should bring with good support for the hardware, provided it is current enough to recognize the new hardware.

[jum1]

This may be counterintuitive, but using a very small Distribution will probably result in more power consumption.

Why is this?
Well, the laptop manufacturers today build in ample features to manage the power consumption of individual parts. Frequency stepping on demand for the CPU, fan throttle control, suspend of HD+WiFi, etc.

All these things need support in software in order to work intelligently. If there is no support, the hardware may run full throttle all the time. A small distribution may not provide all necessary kernel modules and userspace applets. Not to mention the tools to investigate power consumption over time.

That said, I think XUbuntu is a good choice for Laptops and should bring with good support for the hardware, provided it is current enough to recognize the new hardware.

Ok
say you do not customize anything, do you agree that a lighter distribution of linux will keep my laptop on battery longer ?

[ultimatelinux]

I think Google Chrome is also the lightest linux.But,u should wait until google releases it.

[ultimatelinux]

In case if you work in your home,remove the battery of the laptop and plug the charger in and then work.now you can save your battery.

[GNU-Fan]

Ok
say you do not customize anything, do you agree that a lighter distribution of linux will keep my laptop on battery longer ?

No. This statement would be too general.

[reed9]

There's two components of "light" when talking about distros. One is in the software choices, ie, using a window manager over a full blown desktop environment, but also using smaller, lower resource programs like leafpad over gedit for a text editor, or even better, using console programs over GUI programs.

But one also has to take into account the default services running. One of the biggest differences in memory consumption for Xubuntu over, say, Debian with XFCE, is that the former has many more things running in the background.

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

So installing a minimal distro and building it up with just what you need is likely to result in a more efficient desktop. (Of course including things like the cpufreq daemon and power management tools.)

Also, there is powertop, a tool to help identify what's using the post power in your system, and tweaking it to consume less power.