From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 13 21:31:06 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76B611065679 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:31:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bahamasfranks@gmail.com) Received: from mail-gx0-f17.google.com (mail-gx0-f17.google.com [209.85.217.17]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 17B2C8FC12 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:31:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bahamasfranks@gmail.com) Received: by gxk10 with SMTP id 10so1622543gxk.19 for ; Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:31:05 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:reply-to :sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references :x-google-sender-auth; bh=vpY8yoReMbuQO+cGOUcxf60zje6u03vzQDS2sAYaEUc=; b=O+U5N6ODxuGzxt69XmtKViXck6Hfu/NMKcTybU+GbdsUpcxoHWz8folnRjqyGSfcr1 kO2DTOC3K0I/LOhPF5C4ZNCqMPleNoPK8o7glnCagtz6yx67z0lO5xxgjKMdnseWEJrF dbdreWq7sxMIH+UuDtIQew75sES3Fk7y0S3Xo= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:reply-to:sender:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding :content-disposition:references:x-google-sender-auth; b=OzL7gJpo87l/LXNgnJ+/B5bauM3gzhkzvoO7rCNOtE1ueOcNzlj2WX4of62N0dsXOa DFpnbu2kuxM5bGuTOysftPWwgI5qhity02gYhL3HVlxrKWyE1qRr+GczerVK639PiWUa XqfgnIPD3UKN3A9Rb64I9uM9q2JUbmB86gkKo= Received: by 10.150.143.5 with SMTP id q5mr459067ybd.40.1218663065060; Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:31:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.151.50.13 with HTTP; Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:30:59 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <539c60b90808131430y5318355bl71a708ac2b8d710a@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:30:59 -0700 From: "Steve Franks" Sender: bahamasfranks@gmail.com To: "Gary Kline" In-Reply-To: <20080813205633.GB45712@thought.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline References: <20080805181926.GA24000@thought.org> <48A0CF70.4060903@onetel.com> <20080812010745.GA24824@thought.org> <48A21436.1060500@onetel.com> <20080813205633.GB45712@thought.org> X-Google-Sender-Auth: 3537315f28dbedee Cc: FreeBSD Mailing List , Chris Whitehouse Subject: Re: general questions about 7.0 and computer efficiency...... X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: stevefranks@ieee.org List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:31:06 -0000 On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Gary Kline wrote: > 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 serve= r, > having two jails. One jail would be as-is with mail/web/DNS and t= he > 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 =A350 on an energy efficient power supply instead of =A315 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 an= d >> >>running virtual servers to implement their 'green ICT' policy. >> >> >> >>It's great to hear that someone else is thinking about the environment= al >> >>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@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Un= ix > http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org > > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.o= rg" > Good to see some attention paid to this subject. I complained about a year ago about the poor support in freebsd for ataidle, and I got several replies somewhere between indifference, and outright flames, and this from Europeans, who are regarded as somewhat more enlightened on the subject... My server has about 6 disks in it, in several raid configurations, and they're all 7200 or 10k rpm drives, so disk power usage is paramount for me. A good deal of things (i.e. CVS!) choke bigtime when a disk is spun down and they attempt to acess it. Apache used to timeout, but lately, it seems to just wait patently for the disk to spin up then load the page - I will hope this was deliberate...in the meantime, I should probably be on SVN instead of CVS anyway. I still see lots of ugliness in dmesg regarding the disks, but everything seems to function, and I haven't lost any data or commits... Best, Steve