general questions about 7.0 and computer efficiency......

[Gary Kline]

On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 11:52:38PM +0100, Chris Whitehouse wrote:
> Gary Kline wrote:
> >On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 12:46:56AM +0100, Chris Whitehouse wrote:
> >>Hi Gary
> >>
> >	Do you build your hardware from the tower case up?  ---Green is 
> >	"in" these days; so maybe some of us, or each of us, can
> >	contribute to a best-of list for those who are going to find a
> >	local builder or roll their own.  First time I'll be in an "in"
> >	group :-)
> 
> Yep, any old crap case found on the street will do. With a little care 
> building modern hardware is _really_ easy, it's very hard to mess up as 
> there is only a handful of parts and most things that plug into other 
> things can only do so one way and things that aren't supposed to plug 
> into each other mostly can't. Power supplies provide instant protection, 
> ie won't turn on when there is a problem. My computer has one each of 
> motherboard, hard drive, power supply, optical drive and cpu, plus 2 ram 
> modules and a few cables.

> 
> The time consuming part is researching the parts. If you are building 
> servers you might have to dig even deeper, eg
> http://www.worlds-fastest.com/d.pdf/wfw991.pdf
> 

	I have one firewall running pfSense.  It stands guard between my
	modem and my internal server.  I don't understand why the pfSense
	box has two NIC's and the mail/web/DNS has only one, but that's
	how my LAN guy reconfigured things.

	one thing I'm thinking of is to get One fast and lower-power server,
	having two jails.  One jail would be as-is with mail/web/DNS and the
	other jail would be "tao", my main server for years.  When I buy
	a reasonably fast ThinkPad, it could run Ubuntu and I could
	reconfigure my older boxen for emergencies.

> >
> >	Not that bad if you've got only one box.  My Ubuntu is a bear to
> >	reboot, sometimes, because the mouse goes nuts every other
> >	reboot.  
> 
> Do you mean it's not that bad that one computer uses 130 instead of 95. 
> I think that is critical to the problem. To think about climate change 
> you have to multiply your negligible contribution by the total number of 
> negligible contributions. Manufacturers are not interested in 'green' so 
> we have to do it for ourselves. 


	They are finally waking up!  Especially as their own costs
	skyrocket, and as the poor consumers {that's us} start yelping as
	our power bills hit the ceiling.  It will be at least a few years
	though, so for now, yes, it's our responsibility.


> I have to say it was a bit painful 
> spending £50 on an energy efficient power supply instead of £15 on a 
> standard one, but the other parts aren't any more expensive.
> 
> I'll redo my measurements in the next couple of days.
> 
> >
> >>It's a good idea to turn computers off at the wall when not using them
> >>not just shut them down. I was surprised to find mine uses about 25
> >>watts when shut down. Again the Dells at work use even more. The
> >>corporate environment must waste so many megawatts...


	And of course these costs are passed along.  Borne by not only
	the consumer but by the planet.  ....



> >>
> >>For servers my workplace is heading towards fewer physical machines and
> >>running virtual servers to implement their 'green ICT' policy.
> >>
> >>It's great to hear that someone else is thinking about the environmental
> >>effects.
> >
> >
> >
> >	I've been thinking about my footprint ever since talking to a
> >	friend up in Ottawa who was looking into building a hay-bail
> >	home.  This is [tiny] green [/tiny].  Hay-bail insulation is
> >	[HUGE] Green [/HUGE].  I told him I was going to buy some land
> >	north of Nome and plant palm trees! 
> 
> I've just come back from the climate camp at Kingsnorth in UK :)
> 
> Sorry getting OT again but I do think energy use is an issue that we 
> should be addressing and has to be addressed on an individual basis.


	The way I see it, since we {us-[BSD]-geeks} are among the most
	savvy folk on the planet, it's make sense for us to be in the
	lead on this type of issue.  [volumes left unsaid]

	gary

	PS:  just spent 20 minutes crawling around beneath desk.  my
	bare-bones ubuntu draws between 100 -- 107w.  isling.



> 
> Chris
> 
> >
> >	gary
> >
> >
> >>Chris
> >>
> >
> 

-- 
 Gary Kline  kline at thought.org  http://www.thought.org  Public Service Unix
        http://jottings.thought.org   http://transfinite.thought.org