Greetings, In these messages: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2005-March/msg01119.html https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2005-March/msg01128.html https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2005-March/msg01155.html I have summed up why it's not a smart thing, for most home users, to let their PCs up 24/7, whatever OS they run. In a nutshell: A few hundreds USD of electricity per household going just wasted every year Non professionally managed boxes open to attacks: bad for your data and the other netizens who may be hit through your PC I have two practical questions about this (***): 1) are there any exhaustive statistics on how many Watts a current computer (say P4 with 7200 rpm drive + energy star monitor) really dissipates when idle? Not peak figures, the actual electricity adsorbed when it's on but doing nothing, just waiting for somebody to hit the keyboard 2) Is there a one stop howto about how to: make your (Fedora) PC save as much energy as possible and/or turn all networking off automatically, as soon as no interactive processes are on (maybe including ftp downloads) go back to 100% functionality (restart networking, download email...) when the user is back to the keyboard. I know that this is possible, but it would really great to have everything in one place for non technical users, those who would get the greatest savings and extra security for this because they use the computer sparingly. Maybe packaged so that "if you just install this one script so and so, it will take care of everything automatically" Thoughts? Suggestions? Pointers? TIA, Marco Fioretti (***) DISCLAIMER: I have written some paid articles for Linux Journal. While writing this message, I just realized that an howto article on this subject may interest them. In other words, that I might even end up paying some of my electricity bill out of my worries... Now, I don't know now *if* they would accept such an article, but: if I submit a proposal and they accept it, I'll certainly give all due credit to whoever will submit relevant tips There is surely somebody out there more qualified to write this in less time than it would take to me. By all means do go on and write it if you can. What matters is to make this information widely available and easily useable. -- Marco Fioretti mfioretti, at the server mclink.it Red Hat & Fedora for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/ Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which it was already but too easy to arrive at; as railroads lead to Boston or New York. We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. -- H. D. Thoreau, 1854
