"We created LessWatts.org to accelerate technology development and simplify information sharing for effective power management across a broad spectrum of devices and industry segments that are utilizing Linux," James told the audience. "A focused initiative that aggregates the disparate efforts into a holistic system and builds on our existing efforts with the industry in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative will serve as a strong catalyst to get energy-efficient solutions into the market segment faster, thereby benefiting the customers who purchase Intel-based products."
Most would expect this project to be focus on the hardware zone and they would be partially right, as LessWatts is set to provide Linux support for hardware power saving features for Intel platforms. However, the software part is far from being left out. There are several key projects included in the initiative and the highlights list includes
– Linux kernel enhancements: the "tickless idle" feature, which takes better advantage of power saving hardware technologies
– PowerTOP tool that helps tune Linux applications to be power aware
– Linux Battery Life Toolkit to measure and instrument the impact of Linux code changes on power savings.