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Is it normal to get less than half the battery life on ubuntu compared to windows?

sl flag
dawnbringer

I have read a lot of similar questions on askubuntu but all of them mention losing not more than an hour or two of battery life and even then just suggest tlp. For me, I get 6.5 hours of battery life on Windows 10 (battery saving mode) but only 3 hours of battery life on Ubuntu. I installed tlp which increased it by half an hour. Is this normal?

I did find this but it is 7 years old and doesn't have answers anyway. The one answer there is suggests powertop but doesn't elaborate what is to be done next. I did try installing powertop but it didn't make any difference whatsoever.

sudo apt install powertop
sudo powertop --autotune

I should mention that these are on the same laptop but windows 10 - which came preinstalled on 256 GB SSD while Ubuntu was installed by me on the first 200 GB partition of the HDD. Could the SSD-HDD thing be making this difference?

Also, have I missed enabling some setting in tlp? I couldn't find what configuration you should use with it so I'm using it as is.

sudo apt install tlp
sudo tlp start

Is there something else that can be done to improve the battery life? I have been Ubuntu on a desktop without problems but this is the first time I'm using it on a laptop.

Edit: Laptop is Dell Inspiron 15 3000. Ubuntu is 21.04.

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Irsu85 avatar
cn flag
Irsu85
SSD's have a lower power draw than hard disks, so that could be it...
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sl flag
dawnbringer
@lrsu85 does that alone justify the 3 hour dip in battery life?
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in flag
matigo
A lot of this comes down to device manufacturers not making their hardware specifications available to Linux developers. Without knowing what power-saving features are available – and how to enable them – how can an OS reduce power consumption? Other times, it can be resolved with some specific tweaking. Could you [edit] your question to include: (0) the version of Ubuntu you're using (1) the brand and model of computer you're using. With this, it may be possible for someone to offer some suggestions on how to get better battery life
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sl flag
dawnbringer
@matigo edited.
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Irsu85 avatar
cn flag
Irsu85
The hard drive does justify part on the battery dip, but not 3 hours
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cn flag
Rinzwind
"Could the SSD-HDD thing be making this difference?" Yes. It onlymakes sense to compare if the situation is -identical-. Almost impossible to do though. Another one: USB power. It can be switched off when not needed or always stay on. When on expect a dip. I believe your question lacks a lot of info though to make a good answer. What desktop do you use? GNOME wants more power than other desktops in Linux. LXDE needs a lot less but you get less too.
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cn flag
Rinzwind
TLP’s default settings are already optimized for battery life *and implement Powertop’s recommendations out of the box*. So no need to use powertop, TLP provably activated "USB autosuspend" and that got you the extra 1/2 hour. It might also have activated power savings. No need for TLP for that though; it is an option in settings nowadays (might need to install "tweaks").
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sl flag
dawnbringer
@Rinzwind Can you suggest what else information should I add? This is stock unmodified Ubuntu desktop. From the main website. So yeah, GNOME.
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cn flag
Rinzwind
I use budgie but cuz I love the way they did it ;-) and a tip: phoronix has excellent statistics. https://www.phoronix.com and this might be interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Clj0Bn1tS20
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sl flag
dawnbringer
@Rinzwind "phoronix" - what's that?. and about that youtube link - that's exactly my concern. Why is Ubuntu draining battery faster if it is supposed to be lighter on system resources?
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cn flag
Rinzwind
"Why is Ubuntu draining battery faster if it is supposed to be lighter on system resources?" Compared to what? Windows? Who said that? Because I doubt that to be true. And it is highly connected to how well your hardware is supported.
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sl flag
dawnbringer
@Rinzwind "Why? Who said that". Now that I think of it, nobody did. I probably just inferred this from people calling windows full of bloatware and telemetry. "Compared to windows?" yes. "Highly connected to how well your hardware is supported" I think this should be the end of the discussion. Any examples of well supported hardware? I'll just experiment with other distros or maybe I will stick to the preinstalled windows for now. Atleast it won't kill the battery with frequent charge recharge cycles.
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Score:0
avatar Ubuntu
sl flag
dawnbringer

(It's been a long time so I guess my question isn't getting answered. Anyway, I'll post what I've learnt so far...)

Yes, it is normal.

In fact you should expect around 30% to 50% loss in battery life unless you are using something like a Thinkpad. This isn't Ubuntu's fault and it has to do with manufacturers (even mainstream ones like Dell and HP) keeping their proprietary drivers exclusive to Microsoft. I have noticed that even on replacing Ubuntu with Arch (no desktop environment, only dwm + firefox + some command line programs) I was getting no better battery life. Thus, I believe this problem isn't just with Ubuntu but all linux distros as of now (same reason).

In short, if battery life is your concern, either stick with what came pre-installed in your laptop or be prepared to get your hands dirty.

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