LessWatts
Less Watts for Better Computing
When you're working in rural areas, electricity is often very scarce. Your only source of power may be a battery array, which may cost you $10-per-watt to install and recharge via solar power. That means a 100W system would cost you around $1,000 in solar panels, batteries, charge controller and wiring - installed. So every Watt you can save in power consumption matters a great deal.
If you're running a Linux-based computing system, you now have a new ally, courtesy of Intel. LessWatts.org is a community focused on saving power with Linux, bringing developers, users, and sysadmins together to share software, optimizations, and tips and tricks.
Here's just a few ways LessWatts can help you reduce power usage with laptops, desktops, and servers, without updating any software
- Enable the power aware SMP scheduler
- Use SATA link power management
- Enable WiFi power management
- Check for unused Bluetooth
- Use gigabit ethernet speeds only when needed
But LessWatts offers more than just tips and tricks, they're actively developing power-saving projects to reduce your energy footprint. Energy savings that matters in both the middle of Mali and the middle of Manhattan.
Wayan Vota
InveneoWayan Vota is a technology expert focused on appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT) for rural and underserved areas of the developing world. He is a Senior Director at Inveneo and is the editor of ICTworks


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