|
Saving energy is something fundamental today, something that not only benefits laptop and netbook users who thereby gain mobility and working time, but also desktop compus users, by having lower energy consumption and, together with this, lower expenses. |
In the middle of 2010 it is important to create ecological awareness, and that is the approach that Granola gives to its work. It is a multiplatform application that makes use of a feature called DVFS (Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling), very similar to the well-known Cool'n'Quiet from AMD and SpeedStep from Intel. Through these implementations, the application tries to adapt the use of our computer to the demand, managing to benefit us both during quite relaxed and passive activities, such as listening to music, even more intensive ones, such as video games.
The interesting thing about Granola is that it shows us the total that we are saving on an annual average, in Kw, the measure used by electricity companies, but also in dollars and, not least, how many trees we have saved. An approach that is particularly effective in raising awareness. Unfortunately, this application still does not allow us to regulate other components of our hardware and thus be able, for example, to reduce the use of the hard disk or the speed of the fans. To do this, we must use power top, as I saw in a previous post.
The advantages of using this small program are:
- Reduction of energy used.
- Low consumption of application resources.
- No need for additional hardware
- Increased battery life
- Refrigeration cost reduction (I admit that this was funny).
- Reduction of our "ecological footprint"
How to install it
First, we install the repositories.
1. sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
2. Download and install this package.
3. sudo apt-get update
Then, we install the program.
sudo apt-get install granola-gui
Or you can download it from here:
I installed it there to see what's up, and I'm also going to see the powertop thing.
a little thing to correct: to install it is not enough with the «sudo aptitude install ...» before you have to put the repos, here is the explanation:
http://grano.la/help/index.php?download&os=linux
Very interesting utility, I really liked the part where they tell you how much your energy saving is and the trees that have been saved. A few days ago I tried powertop with very positive results.
And then nothing, thanks for bringing us such interesting profits.
Do you have an advantage over Cool n Quiet? Or is it simply a software that is responsible for quantifying the energy saved using CnQ or SpeedStep?
Nothing! Thanks to you for always writing!
I really appreciate it!
Cheers! Paul.
How is Granola different from Intel's SpeedStep, AMD's PowerNow !, Cool'n'Quiet, etc.?
This is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. Intel SpeedStep, AMD PowerNow !, and Cool'n'Quiet provide an application programming interface (API) for utilizing dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). That is, these technologies give other software (eg Granola) the ability to change the power consumption and frequency of the processor; ie these APIs do not carry out any power management themselves. Granola takes advantage of the availability of these tools. Granola dynamically and intelligently adjusts the power consumed by your machine based on CPU demand. The CPU management is implemented using algorithms developed by MiserWare that cleverly predict your CPU's usage. Long story short, SpeedStep, PowerNow !, Cool'n'Quiet and others simply provide the capability for carrying out DVFS. Software, like Granola, is needed to manage these technologies so they save you energy without impacting what you are doing.
The rest of the explanation can be found at: http://grano.la/help/wiki/doku.php?id=faq
THERE SHOULD BE A MANUAL OR A VIDEO TUTORIAL OF THIS GRANOLA PROGRAM, TO KNOW HOW TO USE IT AND HOW TO CONFIGURE IT.