Linux Ecology HOWTO
Werner Heuser < wehe@snafu.de > Wade W. Hampton <whamp-
ton@staffnet.com>
v0.6, 01 March 2000
The Ecology-HOWTO discusses ways Linux computers can be used as a mean
to protect our environment, by using its features to save power or
paper. Since it does not require big hardware, Linux may be used with
old computers to make their life cycle longer. Games may be used in
environmental education and software is available to simulate ecologi-
cal processes.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 Objectives
1.2 Caveats
1.3 About the Document and the Authors
2. Reduction of Power Consumption
2.1 Advanced Power Management (APM/ACPI)
2.1.1 Linux Compatibility Check
2.1.2 Introduction
2.1.3 Caveats
2.1.4 Troubleshooting
2.1.5 ACPI
2.2 Turn Monitor off, use Keyboard LEDs
2.3 Screensavers
2.4 Energy Star Label
2.5 Miscellaneous Power Saving Techniques
3. Alternative Power Supplies - Sun, Wind, Water
4. Noise Reduction
4.1 Fan
4.2 Harddisk
4.3 Speakers
5. Saving Consumables (Paper, Ink, etc.)
5.1 Printing of Drafts / Multiple Pages on One Sheet of Paper
5.2 Reading From the Monitor Instead From Paper
5.3 Other Techniques
6. Recycling of Consumables (Paper, Printer Cartrigdes, CD, Floppies, Tapes)
7. Reduction of Radiation, Electro Magnetic Fields, Heat
8. Extending the Life Cycle of your Hardware
8.1 Recycling of Hardware
8.1.1 Supported CPU Families
8.1.2 Dealing with Limited Resources or Tuning the System
8.1.2.1 Related HOWTOs
8.1.2.2 Introduction
8.1.2.3 Small Space
8.1.2.3.1 Introduction
8.1.2.3.2 Techniques
8.1.2.4 Harddisk Speed
8.1.2.5 Small Memory
8.1.2.5.1 Related HOWTOs
8.1.2.5.2 Techniques
8.1.2.6 Low CPU Speed
8.1.2.7 Tiny Applications and Distributions
8.2 Other Techniques
8.3 Other Operating Systems
9. X10 - Home Automation System
10. Uninterruptable Power Supply - UPS
11. Games
12. Ecology Software (Simulation, Datacollection, Statistics, etc.)
12.1 Ecolab
12.2 OpenClassroom
12.3 Tierra
12.4 Linux in Environmental Research
12.5 SWARM
12.6 Climate-Dynamics
12.7 UNCERT
12.8 EcoTopia
13. Related Projects, Mailing Lists and Newsgroups
14. Credits
15. Revision History
16. Copyright and Disclaimer
17. Appendix A - Linux with Laptops
17.1 Battery
17.2 PCMCIA Card Services and Advanced Power Management
17.3 Power Saving Techniques
18. Appendix B - MP3-Hardware-Decoder at Parallel Port
19. Appendix C - Bibliography
20. Appendix D - Recommendations for Buying a New Computer
21. Appendix E - A New Environmentally Friendly Hardware Design
22. Appendix F - Computer Related Eco Labels
23. Appendix G - Other Operating Systems
23.1 DOS
23.2 MS-Windows
24. Appendix H - URLs of Recylers
______________________________________________________________________
1. Introduction
Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding is the
third. -- Marge Piercy <http://www.capecod.net/~tmpiercy/>
Though computers can be seen as part of environmental pollution, there
are also ways to use computers in a more reasonable manner to help
protect the environment. So I have just started to collect some means
to do so with Linux.
1.1. Objectives
Some objectives of the howto:
o Reduction in power consumption.
o Reduction in consumables like paper and inks.
o Reduction in waste by reusing older components or keeping them in
service longer.
o Reduction in toxic waste such as used batteries.
o Use of Linux in environmental education and research.
1.2. Caveats
Some of the recommendations in this text are discussed controversial,
for instance: powering down a device, when it's not in use. This may
save power, but not under all circumstances. Also it may have other
additional ecological costs, e.g. the life time of the device can be
shortened.
I don't have enough technological knowledge to make a decision between
these alternatives. Also some alternatives might be rated differently
by different persons. So finally the decision what to choose is up to
you. Anyway if you have better alternatives please let me know.
1.3. About the Document and the Authors
If I didn't provide an URL for a program or a package, you may get it
from Debian <http://www.debian.org> or as a RPM package, from your
favorite RPM server, for instance Rufus
<http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/ByName.html>.
Some parts are modified chapters from my Laptop-HOWTO and my
IR-(InfraRed)-HOWTO <http://home.snafu.de/wehe/howtos.html>.
The document is included in the LINUX DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
<http://linuxdoc.org/>.
The latest version of this document is available at Ecology and
Computers <http://home.snafu.de/wehe/eco_linux.html> .
Since Wade W. Hampton provided a great amount of information included
into this text I consider him as a co-author. Though all
responsibility for any mistakes is taken by me.
Jun Morimoto <morimoto@xantia.citroen.org> has written the translation
into Japanese <http://www.linux.or.jp/JF/JFdocs/Ecology-HOWTO.html>.
Please feel free to contact me for comments or questions about the
HOWTO. I know this material is not finished or perfect, but I hope you
find it useful anyway.
Werner Heuser <wehe@snafu.de>
2. Reduction of Power Consumption
There are some means to save power when using a computer which are
supported by Linux: Advanced Power Management, certain harddisk
settings, working without monitor and others.
2.1. Advanced Power Management (APM/ACPI)
2.1.1. Linux Compatibility Check
From the Battery-Powered-mini-HOWTO " .. for APM to work on any
notebook or energy-conscious desktop, the system BIOS ROM in the
machine must support the APM standard. Furthermore, for APM to work
with the Linux operating system, the system BIOS ROM must support
either the 1.0 or 1.1 version of the APM standard, and it must also
support 32-bit protected mode connections. A system that supports APM
1.1 is preferred, as it provides more features that the device driver
and supporting utilities can take advantage of."
You may get information about the APM version with the dmesg command
and in the /proc/apm file.
2.1.2. Introduction
When you first install Linux, you will probably have to recompile the
kernel. The kernel that came with your distribution probably does not
have APM enabled.
APM support consists of two parts: kernel support and user-land
support.
For kernel support, enable the parameters in the corresponding kernel
section. AFAIK not all features work with laptops. AFAIK the feature
CONFIG_APM_POWER_OFF works with most laptops.
The utilities for userland support may be found at WorldVisions
<http://www.worldvisions.ca/~apenwarr/apmd/>. APMD is a set of
programs that control the Advanced Power Management system found in
most modern laptop computers. If you run a 2.2.x kernel and want to
experiment, Gabor Kuti <seasons@falcon.sch.bme.hu> has made a kernel
patch that allows you to hibernate any Linux system to disk, even if
your computers APM BIOS doesn't support it directly.
Richard Gooch wrote: I'have had a look at the beta version of apmd,
and I still don't like it, because:
o Only supports one command to run at suspend time.
o Doesn't distinguish between user and system suspends.
o doesn't provide a way to disable policy (the sync(); sleep(0) ;
sync(); sleep(1); sequence)
o Does not document extra features.
o And I'm not sure that what we want is a single super daemon. A
collection of smaller daemons might be better, since it allows
people to pick and choose. A super daemon is bloat for those who
only want one small feature.
Though this topic was discussed controversly Richard Gooch has put
together a package suspendd at http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/
<http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/> .
Also, have a look at apmcd (apm based crontab) at
ftp://ftp.binary9.net/pub/linux/ <ftp://ftp.binary9.net/pub/linux/> .
A tool made by Nicolas J. Leon <nicholas@binary9.net>
http://mrnick.binary9.net/ <http://mrnick.binary9.net/>.
Note: I didn't check wether this features are merged into one package
(apmd eventually) already.
2.1.3. Caveats
If you have another operating system preinstalled or use another
operating system at the same disk, make sure there is no "hibernation"
or "suspend" tool installed, which could severely interfere with
Linux, e.g. it might use disk space which is occupied by Linux or vice
versa.
2.1.4. Troubleshooting
If your machine worked with 2.0.x kernels but not with the 2.2.x
series, take this advice from Klaus Franken kfr@klaus.franken.de :
"The default changed in 2.2. Search in the init-scripts for halt and
change it to halt -p or poweroff. See man halt , if you don't have
this option you need a newer version of halt." You may find it in the
SysVinit package.
Sometimes X windows and APM don't work smoothly together, the machine
might even hang. A recommendation from Steve Rader: Some Linux systems
have their X server hang when doing apm -s. Folks with this affliction
might want switch to the console virtual terminal then suspend chvt 1;
apm -s as root, or, more appropiately.sudo chvt 1; sudo apm -s. I have
these commands in a script, say, my-suspend and then do xapmload
--click-command my-suspend .
On some new machines (for instance HP Omnibook 4150 - 366 MHz model)
when accessing /proc/apm, you may get a kernel fault general
protection fault: f000. Stephen Rothwell
<Stephen.Rothwell@canb.auug.org.au> http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/
<http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/> explaines: "This is your APM BIOS
attempting to use a real mode segment while in protected mode, i.e. it
is a bug in your BIOS. .. We have seen a few of these recently, except
all the others are in the power off code in the BIOS wher we can work
around it by returning to real mode before attempting to power off.
Here we cannot do this."
2.1.5. ACPI
The latest standard is ACPI. The ACPI4Linux project has started at the
beginning of 1999. The ACPI4Linux project is a kernel driver project
aimed at implementing full ACPI support for Linux, including fan
control, dock/undock detection and a WindowMaker dockable temperature
meter. You may reach it at http://phobos.fachschaften.tu-
muenchen.de/acpi/ <http://phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de/acpi/> .
1. hdparm
<ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/sources/sbin/hdparm-3.0.tar.gz>
hdparm is a Linux IDE disk utility that lets you set spin-down
timeouts and other disk parameters. It works also for some SCSI
features.
2. Mobile Update Daemon
<http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/ulrich/linux/tips.html> This is a
drop-in replacement for the standard update daemon, mobile-update
minimizes disk spin ups and reduces disk uptime. It flushes buffers
only when other disk activity is present. To ensure a consistent
file system call sync manually. Otherwise files may be lost on
power failure. mobile-update does not use APM. So it works also on
older systems.
3. Toshiba Linux Utilities
<http://www2.prestel.co.uk/hex/toshiba.html> This is a set of Linux
utilities for controlling the fan, supervisor passwords, and hot
key functions of Toshiba Pentium notebooks. There is a KDE package
Klibreta, too.
4. LCDproc <http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/> . "LCDproc is a small
piece of software that will enable your Linux box to display live
system information on a 20x4 line backlit LCD display. AFAIK it
connects only to the external Matrix-Orbital 20x4 LCD display
Matrix-Orbital <http://www.matrix-orbital.com/>, which is a LCD
display connected to a serial port.
5. Dial Daemon <http://www.loonie.net/~eschenk/diald.html> . The Diald
daemon provides on demand Internet connectivity using the SLIP or
PPP protocols. Diald can automatically dial in to a remote host
when needed or bring down dial-up connections that are inactive.
2.2. Turn Monitor off, use Keyboard LEDs
There are some tools which allow to get information from your computer
without using the monitor:
o bl : Blink Keyboard LEDs
o blinkd : "Blinks keyboard LEDs for an answering machine or fax
machine. Blinkd is a client/server pair, that lets the keyboard
LEDs blink, indicating things like the number of incoming voice
calls in the voice box or incoming faxes in the spool."
o mailleds : Shows new mails with the keyboard LEDs, mailleds is a
quiet, unobtrusive way to signify that you have new mail: a user
daemon to blink LEDs when there is new mail.
o tleds : Blinks keyboard LEDs indicating TX and RX network packets.
They blink Scroll-Lock LED when a network packet leaves the
machine, and Num-Lock LED when one is received.
2.3. Screensavers
Do they only prevent the screen from being burned in or do they save
power, too?
Some recommendations from Wade W. Hampton:
Screensavers usually display graphics, look for ETI, or perform other
tasks. When using your screensaver in this manner, you may actually
consume MORE power. For example a computer using XSETI as a
screensaver might get far warmer (hence use more power) than when it
was being used to edit a document or perform a compile.
To really save power, and if your X server plus monitor supports it,
use the dpms option of xset (see the manual page for xset). For
example, to enable the DPMS (Energy Star) features of you X server:
xset +dpms
You may also manually change the mode of your X display:
______________________________________________________________________
xset dpms force standby
xset dpms force suspend
xset dpms force off
______________________________________________________________________
AFAIK a CRT consumes on the order of 25 percent more power when
displaying a plain white screen than displaying a plain black screen.
So, a screensaver that's mostly black can help save power, even if it
doesn't actually use DPMS to power down the screen. Of course, one
that's very bright and colourful, or that keeps the CPU running fast
is not much help.
Some screen saver programs:
o The purpose of xscreensaver is to display pretty pictures on your
screen when it is not in use, in keeping with the philosophy that
unattended monitors should always be doing something interesting,
just like they do in the movies. The benefit that this program has
over the combination of the xlock and xautolock programs is the
ease with which new graphics hacks can be installed: you don't
need to recompile this program to add a new display mode, you just
change some resource settings. Any program which can be invoked in
such a way that it draws on the root window of the screen can now
be used as a screensaver without modification. The programs that
are being run as screensavers don't need to have any special
knowledge about what it means to be a screensaver.
o LockVC is a console-locking-program combined with a starfield
screensaver. Executing LOCKVC on a virtual console brings up a
starfield that starts to rotate around all three axes.
2.4. Energy Star Label
Robert Horn <rjh@world.std.com> wrote: "
I had a chance to discuss Energy Star with the designers of desktop
printers. They confirmed that the allowable stand-by power targets
depend on the device, and they only knew their targets. But they made
some other interesting comments:
1. Energy Star ratings lead to significant operational power savings.
Timer based power savings are the exception. Most savings come from
designing in power on demand with low leakage drivers. For example,
using stepper motors with low leakage current instead of high
leakage.
This savings is both from individual designs and from the resulting
demand for low leakage products causing better and cheaper low
leakage product designs. The old-style (e.g. typewriter) design
with one motor (always on) and various clutches is no longer the
least cost.
2. Energy Star was good organizational engineering. It never required
designers to compromise quality or performance, which made it much
harder to argue against design changes to reduce power consumption
while idle. Since most of the savings begin the millisecond that
parts stop moving, these savings are considerable.
3. The power ratings on PC's are a safety rating, not a usage rating.
So the 235W and 300W power supplies that commonly found in PCs are
specifying their safety limits. Actual full power usage is much
less, typically 20-30 percent of the safe limit. The designers also
noted that it is actually difficult to measure the power
consumption of a switching power supply. You need to use specially
designed power meters. The regular AC meters are designed for
motors, and are rather inaccurate for switching power supplies.
..."
2.5. Miscellaneous Power Saving Techniques
Linux halts the CPU in the idle cycle to further reduce power
consumption. Early reports of OS/2, Win3.1/95, NT, and Linux showed
Linux to use far less power than DOS-based O/S's that spun in the idle
loop and consumed power -- this may have changed hence it would need
research to validate.
Most Linux-users tend to leave their computer on for years whenever
possible. However, several modern BIOS's support an unattended
powerup, and with cron you can even do an unattended shutdown. No need
to leave the computer on night after night.
3. Alternative Power Supplies - Sun, Wind, Water
See a survey of links at Eklektix <http://www.eklektix.com/solar> .
4. Noise Reduction
Most of the noise emitted by a computer is produced by the fan, the
harddisk and the speakers.
4.1. Fan
o libsensors0 is a library to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors
o lm-sensors "Kernel drivers to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors.
This is a module for reading the temperature/voltage/fan sensors in
Linux via the LM78/79 chip and possibly sensors on the SMBus
(System Management Bus, usually found in P6 and P-II systems). The
LM80 and a LM78-clone called W83781D are also supported."
http://www.lm-sensors.nu/ <http://www.lm-sensors.nu/>
o ACPI, see APM chapter
4.2. Harddisk
The noise of the hard disk can be very disturbing, see man hdparm to
reduce the spin of the disk.
4.3. Speakers
For the console setterm -blength 0 and for X xset b off turns the bell
off. See also PCMCIA-HOWTO, and much more details in the Visible-Bell-
mini-Howto by Alessandro Rubini.
5. Saving Consumables (Paper, Ink, etc.)
5.1. Printing of Drafts / Multiple Pages on One Sheet of Paper
Use psutils package to put more than one page on one sheet of paper.
This collection of utilities is for manipulating PostScript documents.
Page selection and rearrangement are supported, including arrangement
into signatures for booklet printing, and page merging for n-up
printing.
Often HTML pages are not optimised for printing. You may use html2ps,
a HTML to PostScript converter, to print HTML pages. "This program
converts HTML directly to PostScript. The HTML code can be retrieved
from one or more URLs or local files, specified as parameters on the
command line. A comprehensive level of HTML is supported, including
inline images, CSS1, and some features of HTML 4.0."
Or you may use mpage to print 2 up or 4 up (PS documents or ASCII
text). This may be used to save up to 50 percent or more of your
paper.
5.2. Reading From the Monitor Instead From Paper
Or use less/xless/gless as a viewer instead of printing. You can view
PostScript documents with gs and view PDF documents with either xpdf
or acroread (from Adobe <http://www.adobe.com>). Ask yourself, do you
--really-- need a hardcopy each time you decide to print something
out.
What are the reasons why people don't read from the monitor:
o Reading is slower up to 30 percent, see N.N.
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9602.html>. The speed can be
improved by better hardware (e.g. TFT display, greater screen,
though this is against the other below to take smaller CRTs) and
better display software (type-1, t1lib, truetype, freetype).
o Paper seems better organizable and more secure to some people. I
suppose this can be treated by better software (e.g. Linux) and
hardware, too.
Some people use handheld PC (e.g. PalmIII, Newton Message Pad, Psion
5) to carry around documents to read rather than printing them out.
5.3. Other Techniques
Another means of saving paper is through the use of comments and
redline/strikeout markings when exchanging a document with a co-
worker/colaborator. For example, a draft could be written using
WordPerfect, then E-MAILed to a co-worker. They could update the draft
and send it back to you. You can use WordPerfect's redline/strikeout
features to see the changes. The document need not be printed until it
is "final" or in "final draft" status.
Question: Can you use the back side of paper in a laser printer? I
have not had much luck. You can use the paper that has been in a laser
printer in an inkjet printer by using the other side.
You should purchase smaller computers and monitors when possible. This
will save packaging material translating into less solid waste. For
example the box for a 15" CRT monitor is 2-3 times the size of the box
for a 15" LCD monitor. Linux works well with 15" LCD monitors on
smaller computers like the Netwinder or E3000
<http://www.thinworks.com/campaign/try_e3000.html> .
Some have expressed the concern that LCD displays may use more toxic
materials and manufacturing processes than CRT displays, hence their
usage actually may be worse on the environment. The original
information above concerned the solid waste issue, which is fairly
tangible and hence more controllable.
Does anyone know of studies or additional research to help clarify and
resolve this issue?
Recycle your used paper, ink, and packing materials.
You may use refillable printer cartridges. In Germany the are marked
with the Blauer Engel label.
Laser printer cartridges can often be used much more longer if you
shake them when the message toner low appears at the message panel.
Wade W. Hampton provided the biggest part of this chapter.
From Ralf Muschall I got this suggestions:
o LaTeX documents: Using \usepackage{ccfonts} replaces the usual
fonts by ones with wider lines and bolder serifes, improving
readability at low resolutions. They are darker (i.e. use more ink)
than the CM fonts and not as beautiful, so I would not recommend
them for normal-size printings.
o Size-Reduction: Instead of psnup or other parts of the pstools I
recommend the psnup written in Perl4 by Malcolm Herbert (it's from
1994, and no longer maintained but however there is a descendant of
it called yup, available at yup
<http://redback.spyda.net/~mjch/yup/>.
It has a lot of options, which allow to set all 4 margins and the
inner gutter separately. Since reduced documents are not very
pretty anyway, this can be used to reduce the margin, leaving more
place for the text. This probably requires some experimenting
(trying new values over and over, checking the result with
ghostview).
The normally used options are:
o -p2 (or -p4 etc., like -2 in the old psnup)
o -NIH (don't decorate)
o -l10 -r20 -b30 -t40 (add to margins)
o -g50 (add to gutter)
(these values vary depending on the papersize and the margins of
the original, negative values are allowed).
o Different ink printers are more or less capable to print on the
backside of already used paper sheets. Try different manufacturers.
Older Canon ink printers offer 360 dpi, older HP ink printers 300
dpi. The readability of 4 pages/sheet using LaTex 10pt lies in
between this features.
o Non-Linux: If you have to work with MS-Windows you should get the
original Adobe-PostScript-Driver, instead of using the ones from
MS-Windows. These fonts offer more than one page per paper sheet.
AFAIK both psnup programs don't work with Adobe-PS, MS-Windows-PS
and the PostScript extracted from MS-Windows-PDF files.
o Ghostscript has a new output format pswrite, which creates output
in correct PostScript. This feature can be used to repair broken
PostScript e.g. from Microsoft drivers, allowing their
postprocessing with psnup etc.
o impose+ <http://imagic.weizmann.ac.il/~dov/freesw/impose+/> is a
set of PostScript utilities. The main program is impose, which is
used for two-up printing of DSC-compliant PostScript (including
that from Netscape, dvips, and FrameMaker). It makes an effort to
remove white space from the printout by probing the original
PostScript for the bounding box of the printed area. This makes the
output much more esthetic than does a simplistic layout of non-
cropped original pages.
6. Recycling of Consumables (Paper, Printer Cartrigdes, CD, Floppies,
Tapes)
All of these consumables are recycleable. I have put a list of URLs
into appendix H. You may start this process by separating different
kinds of "waste". There should be included some words on the
difficulties of recycling (data security, motivation, costs, ...).
7. Reduction of Radiation, Electro Magnetic Fields, Heat
o monitors are a source of radiation and electro magnetic fields.
They may be reduced by lead filters, LCD displays. Some eco labels
like TCO95 include maximum levels of radiation, etc.
o especially larger number of PCs or can heat a room very much
therefore it might be necessary to cool the room. This ca be
reduced by using standby (powerdown) techniques.
8. Extending the Life Cycle of your Hardware
8.1. Recycling of Hardware
The commercial computer market is largely driven by vendors seeking to
sell new hardware and software. There is no commercial marketing
benefit in promoting reuse.
Hence Linux doesn't require big hardware, it's very useful if you like
or need to use old and small hardware.
8.1.1. Supported CPU Families
Linux runs on Intel-compatible processors, including Intel's 386, 486,
Pentium, Pentium Pro and Pentium II, and compatible processors by AMD,
Cyrix and others.
Linux doesn't support the 286 CPU family yet. But there are some
efforts at ELKS http://www.linux.org.uk/ELKS-Home/index.html
<http://www.linux.org.uk/ELKS-Home/index.html> or
http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ <http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>.
If you like, you may use Minix <http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html>
one of the predecessors of Linux. Minix supports 8088 to 286 with as
little as 640K memory.
Of course there are also ports to other systems, such as ALPHA,
PowerPC, etc. For details about systems which are supported by the
Linux Kernel, see the Linux FAQ <http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-
FAQ.html> .
The ARM is a fast AND low-power alternative. For example, the
Corel/Rebel Netwinder is based on the ARM processor see Rebel
<http://www.rebel.com> and Strong-ARM
<http://developer.intel.com/design/strong/>.
8.1.2. Dealing with Limited Resources or Tuning the System
This chapter is taken from my Laptop-HOWTO.
8.1.2.1. Related HOWTOs
1. LBX-HOWTO
2. Small-Memory-HOWTO
8.1.2.2. Introduction
To deal with limited space, memory, CPU speed and battery power, I
have written this chapter.
8.1.2.3. Small Space
8.1.2.3.1. Introduction
There are different types of techniques to gain more disk space, such
as sharing of space, freeing unused or redundant space, filesystem
tuning and compression. Note: some of these techniques use memory
instead of space. As you will see, there are many small steps
necessary to free some space.
8.1.2.3.2. Techniques
1. Stripping: Though many distributions come with stripped binaries
today it is useful to check this. For details see man strip. To
find every unstripped file you can use the file command or more
convenient the tool findstrip. Attention: don't strip libraries,
sometimes the wrong symbols are removed due to a bad programming
technique.
A recommendation from Russell Marks <rus@beeb.net>:
These days a lot of people compile with -g, which I find a bit
annoying (though AFAIK this only loses you disk space, in
practice).
strip has a --strip-debug option which doesn't strip symbols, but
does still get rid of the debugging stuff. This is almost as good,
in many cases, and it's ok to use it on libraries. As it happens, I
recently got SuSE 6.3, so I can give you a live example:
___________________________________________________________________
bash-2.03# cd /lib
bash-2.03# ls -l libc.so.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4223971 Nov 6 16:22 libc.so.6
bash-2.03# strip --strip-debug libc.so.6
bash-2.03# ls -l libc.so.6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1200355 Dec 8 00:13 libc.so.6
___________________________________________________________________
2. Perforation: zum(1)reads a file list on stdin and attempts to
perforate these files. Perforation means, that series of null bytes
are replaced by lseek, thus giving the file system a chance of not
allocating real disk space for those bytes. Example: find . -type f
| xargs zum
3. Remove Odd Files and Duplicates: Check your system for core files,
emacs recovery files <#FILE#> vi recovery files <FILE>.swp, RPM
recovery files <FILE>.rpmorig and patch recovery files. Find
duplicates, you may try finddup. Choose a system to name your
backup, temporary and test files, e.g. with a signature at the end.
4. Clean Temporary Files: , e.g. /tmp, there is even a tool tmpwatch.
5. Shorten the Log Files: usually the files in /var/log. There are
some nice helpers for this task around, e.g. savelog .
6. Remove Files: Remove files which are not "necessary" under all
circumstances such as man pages, documentation /usr/doc and sources
e.g. /usr/src .
7. Unnecessary Libraries: You may use the binstats package to find
unused libraries (Thanks to Tom Ed White).
8. Filesystem: Choose a filesystem which treats disk space
economically e.g. rsfs aka Reiser Filesystem. Tune your filesystem
e.g. tune2fs. Choose an appropriate partition and block size.
9. Reduce Kernel Size: Either by using only the necessary kernel
features and/or making a compressed kernel image bzImage.
10.
Compression: I didn't check this but AFAIK you may compress your
filesystem with gzip and decompress it on the fly. Alternatively
you may choose to compress only certain files. You can even execute
compressed files with zexec
11.
Compressed Filesystems:
- For e2fs filesystems there is a compression version available
e2compr , see http://debs.fuller.edu/e2compr/
<http://debs.fuller.edu/e2compr/> .
- DMSDOS which enables your machine to access Windows95 compressed
drives (drivespace, doublestacker). If you don't need DOS/Windows95
compatibility, i.e. if you want to compress Linux-only data, this
is really discouraged by the author of the program. See
http://fb9nt-ln.uni-duisburg.de/mitarbeiter/gockel/software/dmsdos/
<http://fb9nt-ln.uni-
duisburg.de/mitarbeiter/gockel/software/dmsdos/> .
12.
Partition Sharing: You may share swap-space (see Swap-Space-HOWTO)
or data partitions between different OS (see mount). For mounting
MS-DOS Windows95 compressed drives (doublespace, drivespace) you
may use dmsdos
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/
<http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/>.
13.
Libraries: Take another (older) library, for instance libc5 , this
library seems to be smaller than libc6 aka glibc2 .
14.
Kernel: If your needs are fitted with an older kernel version, you
can save some space.
15.
GUI: Avoid as much Graphical User Interface (GUI) as possible.
16.
Tiny Distributions: There are some distributions available which
fit from one 3.5" floppy to 10MB disk space and fit for small
memories, too. See Laptop-HOWTO
<http://home.snafu.de/wehe/index_li.html>
8.1.2.4. Harddisk Speed
Use the tool hdparm to set up better harddisk performance. Though I
have seen laptop disk enabled with striping, I can't see a reason to
do so, because IMHO aka RAID0 striping needs at least to different
disks to increase performance.
8.1.2.5. Small Memory
8.1.2.5.1. Related HOWTOs
1. Small-Memory-mini-HOWTO by Todd Burgess <tburgess@uoguelph.ca >
http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~tburgess
<http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~tburgess>
2. Modules-mini-HOWTO
3. Kerneld-mini-HOWTO
8.1.2.5.2. Techniques
Check the memory usage with free and top.
Mergemem Project <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/ulrich/mergemem/>.
Many programs contain memory areas of the same content that remain
undetected by the operating system. Typically, these areas contain
data that have been generated on startup and remain unchanged for
longer periods. With mergemem such areas are detected and shared. The
sharing is performed on the operating system level and is invisible to
the user level programs. mergemem is particularily useful if you run
many instances of interpreters and emulators (like Java or Prolog)
that keep their code in private data areas. But also other programs
can take advantage albeit to a lesser degree.
You may also reduce the kernel size as much as possible by removing
any feature which is not necessary for your needs and by modularizing
the kernel as much as possible.
Also you may shutdown every service or daemon which is not needed,
e.g. lpd, mountd, nfsd and close some virtual consoles. Please see
Small-Memory-mini-HOWTO for details.
And of course use swap space, when possible.
If possible you may use the resources of another machine, for instance
with X, VNC or even telnet. For more information on Virtual Network
Computing (VNC), see http://http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
<http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc> .
8.1.2.6. Low CPU Speed
You may want to overdrive the CPU speed but this can damage your
hardware and I don't have experience with it. For some examples look
at Adorable Toshiba Libretto - Overclocking
http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html
<http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html>.
8.1.2.7. Tiny Applications and Distributions
A small collection yet, but I'm looking for more information.
1. BOA - "Lightweight and High Performance WebServer. boa is a single-
tasking HTTP server. That means that unlike traditional web
servers, it does not fork for each incoming connection, nor does it
fork many copies of itself to handle multiple connections. It
internally multiplexes all of the ongoing HTTP connections, and
forks only for CGI programs (which must be separate processes.)
Preliminary tests show boa is capable of handling several hundred
hits per second on a 100 MHz Pentium."
2. MGR - a graphical windows system, which uses much less resources
than X.
3. Low Bandwidth X - Alan Cox in LINUX REDUX February 1998 " .. there
are two that handle normal applications very nicely. LBX (Low
Bandwidth X) is the official application of the X Consortium (now
OpenGroup www.opengroup.org). Dxpc
http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~zvonler/dxpc
<http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~zvonler/dxpc> is the alternative most
people prefer. These systems act as proxy X11 servers and compress
datastreams by well over 50 percent for normal requests, often
reaching a reduction to 25 percent of the original bandwidth usage.
With dxpc, X windows applications are quite usable over a 28.8
modem link or across the Internet."
4. blackbox - "This is a window manager for X. It is similar in many
respects to such popular packages as Window Maker, Enlightenment,
and FVWM2. You might be interested in this package if you are tired
of window managers that are a heavy drain on your system resources,
but you still want an attractive and modern-looking interface."
5. linux-lite - distribution based on a 1.x.x kernel for systems with
only 2MB memory and 10MB harddisk. URL see above.
6. smallLinux - http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/
<http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/> . Three disk micro-distribution
of Linux and utilities. Based on kernel 1.2.11. Root disk is ext2
format and has fdisk and mkfs.ext2 so that a harddisk install can
be done. Useful to boot up on old machines with less than 4MB of
RAM.
7. cLIeNUX - client-use-oriented Linux distribution.
8. minix - not a Linux but a UNIX useful for very small systems, such
as 286 CPU and 640K RAM http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html
<http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html> . There is even X support
named mini-x by David I. Bell
ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/
<ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/> .
9. screen - tiny but powerful console manager. John M. Fisk
<fiskjm@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu> in LINUX GAZETTE July 1, 1996 :"It's
a GUI, GUI, GUI, GUI world! " - or so the major OS manufacturers
would have you belief. Truth is, that while this is increasingly
the case, there are times when the command line interface (CLI) is
still a very good choice for getting things done. It's fast,
generally efficient, and is a good choice on memory or CPU
constrained machines. And don't forget that there are still a lot
of very nifty things that can be done at the console." "screen is a
full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal
between several processes, typically interactive shells. Each
virtual terminal provides the functions of the DEC VT100 terminal
and, in addition, several control functions from the ANSI X3.64
(ISO 6429) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g., insert/delete line and
support for multiple character sets). Real multiuser support, split
screen support, hardstatus emulation support, configurable window
seperator and hardstatus strings, permanent window seperator, many
new escapes, logfile timestamps and flush timeout, optional builtin
telnet, optional Braille support, support for history compaction."
10.
tinyirc - "A tiny, stripped down IRC Client. Doesn't have most of
the more advance commands in the ircII family of IRC Clients, nor
does it have any color, but it works, and it's tiny."
11.
tinyproxy - "Tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP proxy designed to do
the job with a minimum of system resource use. It's ideal for small
networks where a larger HTTP proxy such as squid might be overkill
or a security risk. This simplicity also makes tinyproxy an ideal
candidate for customization - it takes very little time to read and
understand the tinyproxy source, and thus you can start adding your
own desired features on short order."
8.2. Other Techniques
NiCad batteries need to be discharged periodically to prevent the
memory effect and prolong their lifespan.
Batteries such as NiCad, Lead Acid, and NiMH contain TOXIC chemicals.
Techniques should be taken to prolong their lifespan, and when you do
discard them, they should be recycled, not thrown in the trash.
One technology to watch is the "Iron" battery mentioned in the article
at N.N. <http://news.excite.com/news/r/990815/01/science-battery-iron>
. Such a battery could reduce some of the toxic waste problems
associated with used batteries, however such a battery is probably a
few years away.
Some remarks about backlights in laptops, monitors (screensavers),
harddisks (hdparm), etc. have to be written.
8.3. Other Operating Systems
Courtesy of George White <gwhite@bodnext.bio.dfo.ca>:
Or you can buy an older computer (SGI, Sun, NeXT) that comes with unix
and is capable of running a wide range of open source software. In
some cases (SGI Indigo2) you can still run current OS versions, in
others you may do better with an open source OS such as Linux, but in
either case you have access to lots of good software and tools to
write your own.
The lower power consumption of older computers means you get more
reserve time from an UPS or can use a small alternative power source
if you don't have access to "mains" power.
9. X10 - Home Automation System
"X-10 modules are devices that plug into an electrical outlet and
allow you to remotely control the power to a lamp or an appliance that
is plugged into them. There are also X-10 modules that install in
place of wall switches to control lights, and there's one that can be
used to set back a thermostat."
These X10 <http://www.x10.com> folks make a really cool dongle called
the Firecracker. These allow for the control of X10 devices via a
serial-port of your PC. Programs like bottlerocket and gtk-x10 allow
Linux programs to control X10 devices using the Firecracker device.
You may be able to get the Firecracker, a remote control, a receiver,
and a lamp module for as little as $5.95 U.S. (special promotion).
GNU Phantom.Home <http://www.joethielen.com/phantom/home/> is a
computer controlled home automation system. The software includes a
circuit diagram for building the Phantom.Home.Controller, a simple
circuit board that attaches to your PC's parallel port. Using the
combination of hardware/software you can control (i.e. flip on or off)
nearly any 120V device. And with a little bit of electronics know-how,
you can probably control nearly any device at any voltage by modifying
the circuit board to meet your needs. The simple circuit included can
be created and built for around $25. The modules cost around $10
(basically a heavy duty relay).
Turn that light off when not in use!
10. Uninterruptable Power Supply - UPS
You should use a UPS if you have many thunderstorms in the area. That
will save hardware, software, your time, and money, and help prevent
you from throwing out that old monitor, CPU, or modem when it gets
trashed by lightening. For details consult the UPS-HOWTO
<http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/UPS-HOWTO.html>.
UPSs do save hardware, save work, etc. In areas prone to lightening,
they could save hours of work each week, potentially translating into
power savings. They do save hardware in areas prone to power outages.
There is some concern over their additional usage of AC power. If
anyone has any studies or research on this issue, could they please
forward it to us? That would be an interesting question to post to
APC, BEST, etc.
11. Games
Personally I'm not much a player of computer games but probably they
can be used for environmental education. In a first investigation I
found lincity and Real Life, please check their usefulness by
yourself.
o lincity build & maintain a city/country. You are required to build
and maintain a city. You must feed, house, provide jobs and goods
for your residents. You can build a sustainable economy with the
help of renewable energy and recycling, or you can go for broke and
build rockets to escape from a pollution ridden and resource
starved planet, it's up to you. Due to the finite resources
available in any one place, this is not a game that you can leave
for long periods of time. This game is similar to the commercial
simulation game with a similar name. This package provides files
common to both the X and SVGALIB versions of the game.
o Real Life <http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/RealLife.html> - "In
Conway's Game of Life every cell is either fully alive (has the
value of 1) or completely dead (has the value 0). In Real Life this
restriction to bivalence is lifted to countenance -real-valued-
degrees of life and death. Real Life contains Conway's Game of Life
as a special case; however, Real Life, in contrast to Conway's Game
of Life, exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions which
is characteristic of chaotic systems."
o Sierra <http://www.sierra.com> has produced (some time ago) Eco
Quest 1 - Lost in Rainforest and Eco Quest 2 - The Search for Cetus
12. Ecology Software (Simulation, Datacollection, Statistics, etc.)
Though I know there is some MS-Windows based software which is used in
ecological science (there is even a branch environmental informatic),
I know only Ecolab available for Linux yet. But I guess Linux software
(for instance databases or statistics programs) may easily adopted.
Also it might be possible to use a Linux cluster to solve ecological
simulations.
12.1. Ecolab
Ecolab is both the name of a software package and a research project
that is looking at the dynamics of evolution.
http://parallel.acsu.unsw.edu.au/rks/ecolab.html
<http://parallel.acsu.unsw.edu.au/rks/ecolab.html> EcoLab is a system
that implements an abstract ecology model. It is written as a set of
Tcl/Tk commands so that the model parameters can easily be changed on
the fly by means of editing a script. The model itself is written in
C++.
12.2. OpenClassroom
"OpenClassroom - distribution for Education. Pre-alpha. homepage:
OpenClassroom <http://www.openclassroom.org/> is integrating a package
of software that allows educational and community organizations to
create communities of knowledge by connecting their existing PCs (old
or new) into a network, both local and worldwide, such as the
Internet. A central focus of this initiative is to allow such
organizations to extend the usable life of their equipment by bringing
them state-of-the-art software that runs on their existing PCs. Our
toolset allows organizations and citizens to own and operate their own
digital printing press."
12.3. Tierra
Tierra <http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra/tierra.html> is a tool
for studying digital evolution and ecology that runs on Linux and
other OSes.
12.4. Linux in Environmental Research
Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton: Linux is ideally suited for use as a
research tool for environmental experiments. There are small embedded
Linux solutions that can be used for remote monitoring or telemetry.
There are VERY small Linux implementations from PC-104 systems to
embedded systems like the uCsimm <http://www.uclinux.com>. Linux even
flew on the shuttle controlling biological experiments.... Linux has
been used for weather research on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft.
Linux is also an ideal platform for researching ecological and
environmental information via the Internet using standard WWW-based
tools like Netscape.
Linux may even be used to model complex biological and environmental
processes. A (beowulf cluster <http://www.beowulf.org> could be used
to run complex simulations of environmental processes, for example
Earthdome <http://www.methaz.com/earthdome.htm> and a survey at A
COLLECTION OF LINKS OF VISUALIZATION & SIMULATION OF SELF-ORGANIZED
SYSTEMS <http://platon.ee.duth.gr/~soeist7t/Visualizations/>.
12.5. SWARM
SWARM <http://www.swarm.org> is a software package for multi-agent
simulation of complex systems that is being developed by the Swarm
Development Group (SDG).
Swarm is intended to be a useful tool for researchers in a variety of
disciplines, especially artificial life. The basic architecture of
Swarm is the simulation of collections of concurrently interacting
agents: with this architecture, we can implement a large variety of
agent based models. The source code is freely available under GNU
Licensing terms.
12.6. Climate-Dynamics
Climate-Dynamics <http://www.climate-dynamics.rl.ac.uk> is project to
share computer client resources to analyze the climate.
12.7. UNCERT
UNCERT <http://uncert.mines.edu/> is a geostatistical uncertainty
analysis package applied to groundwater flow and contaminant transport
modeling. This package was developed for evaluating the inherent
uncertainty in describing subsurface geology, hydraulic properties,
and the migration of hazardous contaminants in groundwater flow
systems. It is well suited for the aforementioned purposes, but is
also sufficiently general to be usable by researchers in a wide range
of disciples.
12.8. EcoTopia
The EcoTopia <http://www.ecotopia.org> web site uses computer
simulation to model Santa Cruz, California as an ideal environmental
community. For Ecotourists and Green Consumers, EcoTopia strives to
offer the nation a model of integration of technology and
environmental remediation using computer modeling and image
forecasting.
13. Related Projects, Mailing Lists and Newsgroups
o Though I searched the WWW, I couldn't find neither a dedicated
newsgroup nor a mailing list yet. So I decided to create the Eco-
Com mailing list. You can subscribe to this list via email. Write
to <eco_com-subscribe@listbot.com>, and you will be sent a
verification message.
o Repair FAQ <http://www.repairfaq.org> .
o Obsolete Computer Helpline
<http://www.ncsc.dni.us/fun/user/tcc/cmuseum/helpline/helpline.htm>
.
o 386 World <http://come.to/386> by Gaute Hvoslef Kvalnes
<386@altavista.net> . He provides one of the greatest recources
available on 386 computers and software. Though his work is mainly
related to MS-Windows, he also supports Linux.
o "The Electronic Green Journal <http://www.lib.uidaho.edu>,
published by the University of Idaho Library, is a professional,
refereed publication devoted to disseminating information
concerning sources on international environmental topics including:
assessment, conservation, development, disposal, education,
hazards, pollution, resources, technology, and treatment. We are
academically sponsored; our focus, however, is to publish articles,
bibliographies, reviews, and announcements for the educated
generalist as well as the specialist. We welcome original
contributions from authors on any of the above topics." . You may
also find a survey about Environmental Resources on the World Wide
Web there.
14. Credits
Thanks to:
o Verena Lorenz-Meyer <lome@cs.tu-berlin.de>
o George White <gwhite@bodnext.bio.dfo.ca>
o Wade W. Hampton <whampton@staffnet.com>
o Daniel Pirone <cocteau@wact.net>
o Knut Suebert <ksueber@gwdg.de>
o Ben De Rydt <ben.de.rydt@pandora.be>
o Hanno Mueller <kontakt@hanno.de>
o Bernhard Reiter <bernhard@uwm.edu>
o Yan Wong <yan.wong@linacre.ox.ac.uk>
o Robert Horn <rjh@world.std.com>
o Martin Pool <martinp@mincom.com>
o Andreas Gohr <ballermann@>
o Lionel, "trollhunter" Bouchpan-Lerust-Juery,
<trollhunter@linuxfr.org>
o Hristo Bojinov <hib@mit.edu>
o Ralf Muschall <rmuschall.fih@t-online.de>
o Russell Marks <rus@beeb.net>
o Martin Pool <martinp@mincom.com>
o Malcolm Herbert <Malcolm.Herbert@fulcrum.com.au>
o Sotiris Vassilopoulos <Sotiris.Vassilopoulos@betatech.gr>
o Thomas Boutell <boutell@boutell.com>
o Matthias Scheller <mscheller@access.diax.ch>
o Martin <Niteskate@aol.com>
o Jun Morimoto <morimoto@xantia.citroen.org>
o Georg Schwarz <schwarz@physik.tu-berlin.de>
15. Revision History
o v0.1, 18 June 1999, first draft
o v0.2, 10 September 1999, changed <htmlurl ... > tag to <url ...>,
another motto, added appendix B about MP3 player, created and added
eco_com mailing list, added chapter about alternative power
supplies, added recommendations for buying a new computer, improved
screensaver section, added UPS chapter, added chapter about
hardware design, minor changes
o v0.3, 17 September 1999, added information about Tierra, added
information about wasting of resources during computer production,
added some comments about UPS, minor changes
o v0.4, 05 December 1999, added appendix G about other operating
systems, added information about CD recycling, added appendix H
URLs of recyclers, removed link to Linux Games Survey, added links
to SWARM, UNCERT and Climate-Dynamics, added chapter about Energy
Star label (courtesy of Robert Horn), minor changes
o v0.5, 04 January 2000, some additional information about PostScript
utilities, new chapter Caveats, URL corrections and minor changes
o v0.6, 01 March 2000, link to Japanese translation added and some
spell checking (thanks to Jun Morimoto), correction of URLs
16. Copyright and Disclaimer
Copyright (C) 1999 by Werner Heuser. This document may be distributed
under the terms set forth in the LDP license at COPYRIGHT
<http://linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html>.
The information in this document is correct to the best of my
knowledge, but there's a always a chance I've made some mistakes, so
don't follow everything too blindly, especially if it seems wrong.
Nothing here should have a detrimental effect on your computer, but
just in case I take no responsibility for any damages incurred from
the use of the information contained herein. All trademarks belong to
their owners.
17. Appendix A - Linux with Laptops
17.1. Battery
Has to be written. See LDP - Battery-HOWTO
<http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Battery-Powered.html> by Hanno
Mueller, too.
apmd-rhcn-2.4phil-1 by RedHat ftp://rhcn.redhat.com/pub/rhcn/
<ftp://rhcn.redhat.com/pub/rhcn/> contains an unofficial patch for
shutting down the PCMCIA sockets before a suspend and patches for
multiple batteries.
17.2. PCMCIA Card Services and Advanced Power Management
Quoted from the LDP - PCMCIA-HOWTO <http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/PCMCIA-
HOWTO.html>: "Card Services can be compiled with support for APM
(Advanced Power Management) if you've configured your kernel with APM
support. ... The PCMCIA modules will automatically be configured for
APM if a compatible version is detected on your system. Whether or not
APM is configured, you can use cardctl suspend before suspending your
laptop, and cardctl resume after resuming, to cleanly shut down and
restart your PCMCIA cards. This will not work with a modem that is in
use, because the serial driver isn't able to save and restore the
modem operating parameters. APM seems to be unstable on some systems.
If you experience trouble with APM and PCMCIA on your system, try to
narrow down the problem to one package or the other before reporting a
bug. Some drivers, notably the PCMCIA SCSI drivers, cannot recover
from a suspend/resume cycle. When using a PCMCIA SCSI card, always
use cardctl eject prior to suspending the system."
You should use the internal modem in a laptop instead of a PCMCIA
modem, if possible (it may be a WinModem).
17.3. Power Saving Techniques
1. If you don't need infrared support, disable it in the BIOS or
shutdown the IrDA device driver. There are also some IrDA features
of the kernel which are useful for saving power.
In the specifications of my HP OmniBook 800 it is recommended to
turn off the IR port, if it is not in use, because it may consume
up to 10 percent of the battery time.
If necessary, you may also try to disable the Fast RRs feature in
the IrDA section of the kernel. This option will give you much
better latencies but will consume more power.
2. PCMCIA services consume much power, so shut them down if you don't
need them.
3. I'm not sure to which extend the backlight consumes power. WARNING:
AFAIK this device can only bear a limited number of uptime circles.
So avoid using screensavers too much.
4. For some examples to build batteries with increased uptime up to 8
hours look at Adorable Toshiba Libretto
http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html
<http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html>.
5. For information about APM look at the APM chapter above.
6. A hacked rclock <http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~bbense/toys/>.
Booker C. Bense has hacked the rclock program to include a simple
battery power meter on the clock face.
7. xbatstat <http://www.jaist.ac.jp/~daisuke/Linux/xbatstat.html>. A
battery level status checker for Linux and X.
8. KDE http://www.kde.org <http://www.kde.org> provides KAPM, Kbatmon
and Kcmlaptop. Written by Paul Campbell kcmlaptop is a set of KDE
control panels that implements laptop computer support functions,
it includes a dockable battery status monitor for laptops - in
short a little icon in the KDE status bar that shows how much
battery time you have left. It also will warn you when power is
getting low and allows you to configure power saving options.
Similar packages you may find at the GNOME project
http://www.gnome.org/ <http://www.gnome.org/> . See the software
maps at both sites.
9. Please see Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO by Hanno Mueller,
hanno@lava.de http://www.lava.de/~hanno/
<http://www.lava.de/~hanno/> for more information.
10.
toshiba-fan Turn the fan on a Toshiba Pentium laptop on or off.
This is a command line utility to turn the fan of a Toshiba laptop
on or off, or view its current state. It should work on all Toshiba
Pentium laptops that have fans.
18. Appendix B - MP3-Hardware-Decoder at Parallel Port
In the German computer magazine CT <http://www.heise.de/ct/> issue
9/1999 p. 200 and 10/1999 p. 260 I found an article about turning an
old PC (from 286 upward) into a MP3 player, by using a MP3-Hardware-
Decoder at the parallel port. Authors Homepag <http://www.ieee.rwth-
aachen.de/mp3/> .
Also mentioned there, is a software by Klaus Peichl <http://cip8.e-
technik.uni-erlangen.de:8080/hyplan/kspeichl/mpegcd.htm>, which
doesn't need a hardware decoder.
Though both programs are DOS based, I mention them here. I hadn't time
to look for an according Linux solution.
Cajun <http://www.cajun.nu/> is a program that allows you to turn any
computer (>75mhz) into a massive audio jukebox for your car or home.
It uses the matrix-orbital serial display and supports the IRman
infra-red remote control interface. Soundcard output is delivered to
your (car or home) stereo for amplification. The software supports a
hotlist and shuffle mode. It includes FM/Video4Linux support,
icecast/shoutcast support, CrystalFontz serial display support, and
choice of mpg123 or xaudio for driving the sound card.
19. Appendix C - Bibliography
o Ellringmann, H. /Hrsg.): Softwarefuehrer Umweltschutz. Anbieter -
Produkte - Maerkte; 1999ff.
o Koellner, W. / Fichtler, W.: Recycling von Elektro- und
Elektronikschrott; 1996
o Rohwedder, W.J. "Rocky" / Alm, Andy: Using Computers in
Environmental Education; 1994
o Schloegl, M.:Recycling von Elektro- und Elektronikschrott; 1995
o Tiltmann, K.O. (Hrsg.): Recyclingpraxis Elektronik; 1994
o Andreas Grote: (be): Gruene Rechnung - Das Produkt Computer in der
Oekobilanz - Report, Oekologie, Rohstoffverbrauch, Energieverbrauch
und Schadstoff-Emissionen bei Herstellung, Betrieb und Entsorgung,
EPA, Energy Star, Green-PC (c't 12/1994, Seite 92) CT
<http://www.heise.de/ct/> .
20. Appendix D - Recommendations for Buying a New Computer
Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton (modifications by wh): Purchase a low-
power computer such as a laptop or network computer. These typically
don't use as much power as desktop systems. For example, someone on
the WWW had a Corel/Rebel Netwinder powered by solar cells. I find it
funny that an "Energy Star" desktop still has a 300W power supply and
uses far more power than a computer like the Netwinder which uses
something like 10 Watts of power, (though this is consistent with the
Energy Star goals for computer equipment, since they have targeted
unused power consumption).
Maybe there should be a new class of computers called "Energy Miser"
(or similar) that use nearly an order of magnitude less power than
Energy Star systems?
To save power for the display, one could purchase a LCD monitor
instead of a CRT. LCD monitors consume 30-40 Watts of power versus the
100's of Watts used by most monitors. The price of an LCD is still
2-3 times that of a similar monitor, but as LCDs become more widely
used, the price will come down.
Make sure that any new computer purchase includes APM-compliant
hardware and low-radiation. Use TCO, DPMS or Energy Star compliant
monitors.
R Horn <rjh@world.std.com> wrote: " I personally have found the
Lawrence Berkeley Labs - LBL <http://eande.lbl.gov/> web site to be
the best source for information on energy efficient equipment. They go
into considerable details on how to reduce energy consumption from
many kinds of equipment, including much more than computers. They
also have a good collection of links to related sites. The Energy Star
program is defined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which
has a web site on it. So far all of the Energy Star regulations have
been defined to reduce energy usage without requireing change or
restrictions on regular usage. There is an amazingly large amount of
electricity consumed by idle equipment (computers, televisions,
microwave ovens,...) and also large amounts consumed unnecessarily by
equipment that must be continuously one (emergency exit signs, traffic
lights, ...). Since this energy can be saved without asking users to
make any compromises on performance, it is being targeted first.
Somewhere on the LBL web site they have the actual power consumption
figures for various PCs. The 300W power supply is quite misleading.
Actual power usage varies depending upon what programs you run and
whether the disks can be powered down. Genuine usage while in
operation is usually in the 50-75W range. When the system is idle, it
drops significantly.
The NetWinder is a nice machine, but does force operational
compromises. The peak CPU performance is much lower. The operating
system is not Windows. And there are other limitations. A closer
comparison is the typical laptop PC. These can generally be operated
from a modest solar panel because their average power drain is quite
low. With these you can see the cost vs power consumption tradeoff.
They achieve the same performance as the desktop units, but the low
power consumption has doubled or tripled the cost.
(I personally use a Psion. A decent slow computer that requires only
200mw of power. It may even run Linux once they deal with some of the
ROM issues.)
The big debate in setting the energy star regulations was deciding
which would have greater overall benefit: small negligible cost
improvements to almost all equipment sold, or greater improvements at
much higher cost? Could that cost be invested elsewhere to greater
benefit? How will the purchasers react to the higher cost? So far the
consensus has been that improving a large number of machines at
negligible cost is wiser than improving a smaller number of machines
at high cost."
21. Appendix E - A New Environmentally Friendly Hardware Design
Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton and Knut Suebert: New hardware designs
that plan to use Linux should take advantage of environmentally
friendly technologies such as low-power CPUs e.g., the ARM from: Intel
<http://developer.intel.com/design/strong/>, environmentally friendly
battery design, low-power displays (e.g., non-backlit LCDs), smaller
packaging, etc. Linux supports a WIDE variety of hardware and
technologies. These could be leveraged into powerful, flexible,
environmentally friendly Linux-based solutions.
An "Environmental Rating" could be created for new Linux-based
hardware and even some Linux-based software such as bottlerocket
(X10). Devices such as the Netwinder or the uCsimm would receive high
ratings for their size, power consumption, capabilities, etc.
At Telepolis (German Computer Magazine)
<http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/1367/1.html> you might
find an article about wasted resources during computer manufacturing.
Generally speaking PPC CPUs consume less power than x86 CPUs.
22. Appendix F - Computer Related Eco Labels
Currently I have only this small list: TCO, DPMS or Energy Star Blauer
Engel <http://www.blauer-engel.de/> (Germany), Energy Label - Group
for Efficient Appliances (GEA).
23. Appendix G - Other Operating Systems
23.1. DOS
To my surprise there are still many tools available to make old 286 PC
useful. I started a search for 286 at Simtel.Net
<http://www.simtel.net/> and found many useful shareware programs. For
instance:
o Full-featured LAN for MSDOS computers, 286+req
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/lan/neos-10.zip>
o RoseMail, PCBoard offline mail, 8086/286 exe's
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/pcboard/rm172b.zip>
o Multitasking/multiuser environment for 286-586
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysutl/vmix285.zip>
There is even a free DOS around, see The OS Developers Homepage
<http://www.500mhz.net/ndx.html>
23.2. MS-Windows
A power saving utility CPUIDLE
<http://www.bugcomputer.com/cpuidle/index.html > is available. Another
one for older versions of MS-WindowsNT is available at Niteskate
<http://members.aol.com/niteskate/ntpwr.zip>.
24. Appendix H - URLs of Recylers
o REMEDIA <http://www.remedia.de/mitte.htm> - Germany - recycling of
data storage media (CD, floppy, tape)
o ALCAD <http://www.alcad.com/site_map.htm > - worldwide - Ni-Cd
Battery Recycling
o CD-COLLECT <http://www.cd-collect.com/> - CD recycling
o Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation <http://www.rbrc.org/>
RBRC is a non-profit, public service organization created to
promote the recycling of Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) rechargeable
batteries.
o The European Portable Battery Association (EPBA) <http://www.epba-
europe.org> is the European organisation of companies
manufacturing, selling or distributing portable batteries. The
mission of the EPBA is to ensure that the ideal conditions are
created for responsible development of the portable battery
industry in Europe. Acting in the common interests of all of its
members, the EPBA aims to sustain a competitive industry in an
increasingly complex commercial climate.
o Battery Council International <http://www.batterycouncil.org > is a
not-for-profit organization with the mission of promoting the
interests of the international lead-acid battery industry. With
more than 175 members worldwide, the Battery Council International
(BCI) brings together lead-acid battery manufacturers and
recyclers, marketers and retailers, suppliers of raw materials and
equipment, and industry consultants.