The truth about Linux Power Management "issues"

Anybody who's even remotely interested in Linux probably heard about a "power regression bug" in the Linux Kernel that was making lots of noise lately. The whole thing started from several posts at Phoronix, which not only stated the problem, but also accused the Linux Kernet team of completely ignoring it and doing nothing to fix it.

Power management is anything but a simple subject, so a big majority of us users hardly know enough to challenge claims about a power management bug. To make matters worse, many Linux users dual boot with Windows, which usually does a better job at energy saving (thanks to optimized proprietary drivers). For most of those users who could notice how their Linux installation ate their laptop battery faster than Windows, it didn't take much to give this rumor solid credibility. Therefore, the fact that Linux Kernel developers were apparently doing nothing about it simply felt all the more annoying, which only helped spread the rumor like fire on a windy day.

Well, guess what? That's all it is, a rumor. FEWT, the main developer behind the wonderful FUDUNTU distro and the slick Jupiter power management application has put together a very informative ARTICLE on this, clarifying some of the misconceptions spread by the whole power bug fiasco originator, Michael Larabel.

I very much recommend reading FEWT's article to understand this matter a bit better, and most importantly, to avoid spreading this poisoning rumor any further.

Thanks FEWT for putting the time to clarify this one!