  Linux Ecology HOWTO
  Werner Heuser < wehe@snafu.de > Wade W. Hampton <whamp-
  ton@staffnet.com>
  v0.6, 01 March 2000

  The Ecology-HOWTO discusses ways Linux computers can be used as a mean
  to protect our environment, by using its features to save power or
  paper. Since it does not require big hardware, Linux may be used with
  old computers to make their life cycle longer. Games may be used in
  environmental education and software is available to simulate ecologi-
  cal processes.
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents



  1. Introduction

     1.1 Objectives
     1.2 Caveats
     1.3 About the Document and the Authors

  2. Reduction of Power Consumption

     2.1 Advanced Power Management (APM/ACPI)
        2.1.1 Linux Compatibility Check
        2.1.2 Introduction
        2.1.3 Caveats
        2.1.4 Troubleshooting
        2.1.5 ACPI
     2.2 Turn Monitor off, use Keyboard LEDs
     2.3 Screensavers
     2.4 Energy Star Label
     2.5 Miscellaneous Power Saving Techniques

  3. Alternative Power Supplies - Sun, Wind, Water

  4. Noise Reduction

     4.1 Fan
     4.2 Harddisk
     4.3 Speakers

  5. Saving Consumables (Paper, Ink, etc.)

     5.1 Printing of Drafts / Multiple Pages on One Sheet of Paper
     5.2 Reading From the Monitor Instead From Paper
     5.3 Other Techniques

  6. Recycling of Consumables (Paper, Printer Cartrigdes, CD, Floppies, Tapes)

  7. Reduction of Radiation, Electro Magnetic Fields, Heat

  8. Extending the Life Cycle of your Hardware

     8.1 Recycling of Hardware
        8.1.1 Supported CPU Families
        8.1.2 Dealing with Limited Resources or Tuning the System
           8.1.2.1 Related HOWTOs
           8.1.2.2 Introduction
           8.1.2.3 Small Space
              8.1.2.3.1 Introduction
              8.1.2.3.2 Techniques
           8.1.2.4 Harddisk Speed
           8.1.2.5 Small Memory
              8.1.2.5.1 Related HOWTOs
              8.1.2.5.2 Techniques
           8.1.2.6 Low CPU Speed
           8.1.2.7 Tiny Applications and Distributions
     8.2 Other Techniques
     8.3 Other Operating Systems

  9. X10 - Home Automation System

  10. Uninterruptable Power Supply - UPS

  11. Games

  12. Ecology Software (Simulation, Datacollection, Statistics, etc.)

     12.1 Ecolab
     12.2 OpenClassroom
     12.3 Tierra
     12.4 Linux in Environmental Research
     12.5 SWARM
     12.6 Climate-Dynamics
     12.7 UNCERT
     12.8 EcoTopia

  13. Related Projects, Mailing Lists and Newsgroups

  14. Credits

  15. Revision History

  16. Copyright and Disclaimer

  17. Appendix A - Linux with Laptops

     17.1 Battery
     17.2 PCMCIA Card Services and Advanced Power Management
     17.3 Power Saving Techniques

  18. Appendix B - MP3-Hardware-Decoder at Parallel Port

  19. Appendix C - Bibliography

  20. Appendix D - Recommendations for Buying a New Computer

  21. Appendix E - A New Environmentally Friendly Hardware Design

  22. Appendix F - Computer Related Eco Labels

  23. Appendix G - Other Operating Systems

     23.1 DOS
     23.2 MS-Windows

  24. Appendix H - URLs of Recylers



  ______________________________________________________________________


  1.  Introduction

  Life is the first gift, love is the second, and understanding is the
  third. -- Marge Piercy <http://www.capecod.net/~tmpiercy/>


  Though computers can be seen as part of environmental pollution, there
  are also ways to use computers in a more reasonable manner to help
  protect the environment. So I have just started to collect some means
  to do so with Linux.


  1.1.  Objectives

  Some objectives of the howto:


  o  Reduction in power consumption.

  o  Reduction in consumables like paper and inks.

  o  Reduction in waste by reusing older components or keeping them in
     service longer.
  o  Reduction in toxic waste such as used batteries.

  o  Use of Linux in environmental education and research.


  1.2.  Caveats

  Some of the recommendations in this text are discussed controversial,
  for instance: powering down a device, when it's not in use. This may
  save power, but not under all circumstances. Also it may have other
  additional ecological costs, e.g. the life time of the device can be
  shortened.

  I don't have enough technological knowledge to make a decision between
  these alternatives. Also some alternatives might be rated differently
  by different persons. So finally the decision what to choose is up to
  you. Anyway if you have better alternatives please let me know.


  1.3.  About the Document and the Authors

  If I didn't provide an URL for a program or a package, you may get it
  from Debian <http://www.debian.org> or as a RPM package, from your
  favorite RPM server, for instance Rufus
  <http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/ByName.html>.

  Some parts are modified chapters from my Laptop-HOWTO and my
  IR-(InfraRed)-HOWTO <http://home.snafu.de/wehe/howtos.html>.

  The document is included in the LINUX DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
  <http://linuxdoc.org/>.

  The latest version of this document is available at Ecology and
  Computers <http://home.snafu.de/wehe/eco_linux.html> .

  Since Wade W. Hampton provided a great amount of information included
  into this text I consider him as a co-author. Though all
  responsibility for any mistakes is taken by me.

  Jun Morimoto <morimoto@xantia.citroen.org> has written the translation
  into Japanese <http://www.linux.or.jp/JF/JFdocs/Ecology-HOWTO.html>.

  Please feel free to contact me for comments or questions about the
  HOWTO. I know this material is not finished or perfect, but I hope you
  find it useful anyway.

  Werner Heuser <wehe@snafu.de>


  2.  Reduction of Power Consumption

  There are some means to save power when using a computer which are
  supported by Linux: Advanced Power Management, certain harddisk
  settings, working without monitor and others.


  2.1.  Advanced Power Management (APM/ACPI)


  2.1.1.  Linux Compatibility Check

  From the Battery-Powered-mini-HOWTO " .. for APM to work on any
  notebook or energy-conscious desktop, the system BIOS ROM in the
  machine must support the APM standard. Furthermore, for APM to work
  with the Linux operating system, the system BIOS ROM must support
  either the 1.0 or 1.1 version of the APM standard, and it must also
  support 32-bit protected mode connections. A system that supports APM
  1.1 is preferred, as it provides more features that the device driver
  and supporting utilities can take advantage of."

  You may get information about the APM version with the dmesg command
  and in the /proc/apm file.


  2.1.2.  Introduction

  When you first install Linux, you will probably have to recompile the
  kernel. The kernel that came with your distribution probably does not
  have APM enabled.

  APM support consists of two parts: kernel support and user-land
  support.

  For kernel support, enable the parameters in the corresponding kernel
  section. AFAIK not all features work with laptops. AFAIK the feature
  CONFIG_APM_POWER_OFF works with most laptops.

  The utilities for userland support may be found at WorldVisions
  <http://www.worldvisions.ca/~apenwarr/apmd/>. APMD is a set of
  programs that control the Advanced Power Management system found in
  most modern laptop computers. If you run a 2.2.x kernel and want to
  experiment, Gabor Kuti <seasons@falcon.sch.bme.hu> has made a kernel
  patch that allows you to hibernate any Linux system to disk, even if
  your computers APM BIOS doesn't support it directly.

  Richard Gooch wrote: I'have had a look at the beta version of apmd,
  and I still don't like it, because:


  o  Only supports one command to run at suspend time.

  o  Doesn't distinguish between user and system suspends.

  o  doesn't provide a way to disable policy (the sync(); sleep(0) ;
     sync(); sleep(1); sequence)

  o  Does not document extra features.

  o  And I'm not sure that what we want is a single super daemon. A
     collection of smaller daemons might be better, since it allows
     people to pick and choose. A super daemon is bloat for those who
     only want one small feature.

  Though this topic was discussed controversly Richard Gooch has put
  together a package suspendd at http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/
  <http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~rgooch/linux/> .

  Also, have a look at apmcd (apm based crontab) at
  ftp://ftp.binary9.net/pub/linux/ <ftp://ftp.binary9.net/pub/linux/> .
  A tool made by Nicolas J. Leon <nicholas@binary9.net>
  http://mrnick.binary9.net/ <http://mrnick.binary9.net/>.

  Note: I didn't check wether this features are merged into one package
  (apmd eventually) already.


  2.1.3.  Caveats

  If you have another operating system preinstalled or use another
  operating system at the same disk, make sure there is no "hibernation"
  or "suspend" tool installed, which could severely interfere with
  Linux, e.g. it might use disk space which is occupied by Linux or vice
  versa.


  2.1.4.  Troubleshooting

  If your machine worked with 2.0.x kernels but not with the 2.2.x
  series, take this advice from Klaus Franken kfr@klaus.franken.de :
  "The default changed in 2.2. Search in the init-scripts for halt and
  change it to halt -p or poweroff. See man halt , if you don't have
  this option you need a newer version of halt." You may find it in the
  SysVinit package.

  Sometimes X windows and APM don't work smoothly together, the machine
  might even hang. A recommendation from Steve Rader: Some Linux systems
  have their X server hang when doing apm -s. Folks with this affliction
  might want switch to the console virtual terminal then suspend chvt 1;
  apm -s as root, or, more appropiately.sudo chvt 1; sudo apm -s. I have
  these commands in a script, say, my-suspend and then do xapmload
  --click-command my-suspend .

  On some new machines (for instance HP Omnibook 4150 - 366 MHz model)
  when accessing /proc/apm, you may get a kernel fault general
  protection fault: f000. Stephen Rothwell
  <Stephen.Rothwell@canb.auug.org.au> http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/
  <http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~sfr/> explaines: "This is your APM BIOS
  attempting to use a real mode segment while in protected mode, i.e. it
  is a bug in your BIOS. .. We have seen a few of these recently, except
  all the others are in the power off code in the BIOS wher we can work
  around it by returning to real mode before attempting to power off.
  Here we cannot do this."


  2.1.5.  ACPI

  The latest standard is ACPI. The ACPI4Linux project has started at the
  beginning of 1999. The ACPI4Linux project is a kernel driver project
  aimed at implementing full ACPI support for Linux, including fan
  control, dock/undock detection and a WindowMaker dockable temperature
  meter. You may reach it at http://phobos.fachschaften.tu-
  muenchen.de/acpi/ <http://phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de/acpi/> .


  1. hdparm
     <ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/sources/sbin/hdparm-3.0.tar.gz>
     hdparm is a Linux IDE disk utility that lets you set spin-down
     timeouts and other disk parameters. It works also for some SCSI
     features.

  2. Mobile Update Daemon
     <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/ulrich/linux/tips.html> This is a
     drop-in replacement for the standard update daemon, mobile-update
     minimizes disk spin ups and reduces disk uptime. It flushes buffers
     only when other disk activity is present. To ensure a consistent
     file system call sync manually. Otherwise files may be lost on
     power failure. mobile-update does not use APM. So it works also on
     older systems.

  3. Toshiba Linux Utilities
     <http://www2.prestel.co.uk/hex/toshiba.html> This is a set of Linux
     utilities for controlling the fan, supervisor passwords, and hot
     key functions of Toshiba Pentium notebooks. There is a KDE package
     Klibreta, too.

  4. LCDproc <http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/> . "LCDproc is a small
     piece of software that will enable your Linux box to display live
     system information on a 20x4 line backlit LCD display. AFAIK it
     connects only to the external Matrix-Orbital 20x4 LCD display
     Matrix-Orbital <http://www.matrix-orbital.com/>, which is a LCD
     display connected to a serial port.

  5. Dial Daemon <http://www.loonie.net/~eschenk/diald.html> . The Diald
     daemon provides on demand Internet connectivity using the SLIP or
     PPP protocols. Diald can automatically dial in to a remote host
     when needed or bring down dial-up connections that are inactive.


  2.2.  Turn Monitor off, use Keyboard LEDs

  There are some tools which allow to get information from your computer
  without using the monitor:


  o  bl : Blink Keyboard LEDs

  o  blinkd : "Blinks keyboard LEDs for an answering machine or fax
     machine. Blinkd is a client/server pair, that lets the keyboard
     LEDs blink, indicating things like the number of incoming voice
     calls in the voice box or incoming faxes in the spool."

  o  mailleds : Shows new mails with the keyboard LEDs, mailleds is a
     quiet, unobtrusive way to signify that you have  new mail: a user
     daemon to blink LEDs when there is new mail.

  o  tleds : Blinks keyboard LEDs indicating TX and RX network packets.
     They blink Scroll-Lock LED when a network packet leaves the
     machine, and Num-Lock LED when one is received.


  2.3.  Screensavers

  Do they only prevent the screen from being burned in or do they save
  power, too?

  Some recommendations from Wade W. Hampton:

  Screensavers usually display graphics, look for ETI, or perform other
  tasks.  When using your screensaver in this manner, you may actually
  consume MORE power. For example a computer using XSETI as a
  screensaver might get far warmer (hence use more power) than when it
  was being used to edit a document or perform a compile.

  To really save power, and if your X server plus monitor supports it,
  use the dpms option of xset (see the manual page for xset). For
  example, to enable the DPMS (Energy Star) features of you X server:
  xset +dpms

  You may also manually change the mode of your X display:

  ______________________________________________________________________
  xset dpms force standby
  xset dpms force suspend
  xset dpms force off
  ______________________________________________________________________



  AFAIK a CRT consumes on the order of 25 percent more power when
  displaying a plain white screen than displaying a plain black screen.
  So, a screensaver that's mostly black can help save power, even if it
  doesn't actually use DPMS to power down the screen. Of course, one
  that's very bright and colourful, or that keeps the CPU running fast
  is not much help.


  Some screen saver programs:


  o  The purpose of xscreensaver is to display pretty pictures on your
     screen when it is not in use, in keeping with the philosophy that
     unattended monitors should always be doing something interesting,
     just like they do in the movies. The benefit that this program has
     over the combination of the xlock and  xautolock programs is the
     ease with which new graphics hacks can be  installed: you don't
     need to recompile this program to add a new display mode, you just
     change some resource settings. Any program which can be  invoked in
     such a way that it draws on the root window of the screen can now
     be used as a screensaver without modification.  The programs that
     are being run as screensavers don't need to have any special
     knowledge about what it means to be a screensaver.

  o  LockVC is a console-locking-program combined with a starfield
     screensaver. Executing LOCKVC on a virtual console brings up a
     starfield that starts to rotate around all three axes.


  2.4.  Energy Star Label

  Robert Horn <rjh@world.std.com> wrote: "

  I had a chance to discuss Energy Star with the designers of desktop
  printers. They confirmed that the allowable stand-by power targets
  depend on the device, and they only knew their targets. But they made
  some other interesting comments:

  1. Energy Star ratings lead to significant operational power savings.
     Timer based power savings are the exception. Most savings come from
     designing in power on demand with low leakage drivers. For example,
     using stepper motors with low leakage current instead of high
     leakage.

     This savings is both from individual designs and from the resulting
     demand for low leakage products causing better and cheaper low
     leakage product designs. The old-style (e.g. typewriter) design
     with one motor (always on) and various clutches is no longer the
     least cost.


  2. Energy Star was good organizational engineering. It never required
     designers to compromise quality or performance, which made it much
     harder to argue against design changes to reduce power consumption
     while idle. Since most of the savings begin the millisecond that
     parts stop moving, these savings are considerable.

  3. The power ratings on PC's are a safety rating, not a usage rating.
     So the 235W and 300W power supplies that commonly found in PCs are
     specifying their safety limits. Actual full power usage is much
     less, typically 20-30 percent of the safe limit. The designers also
     noted that it is actually difficult to measure the power
     consumption of a switching power supply. You need to use specially
     designed power meters. The regular AC meters are designed for
     motors, and are rather inaccurate for switching power supplies.

     ..."



  2.5.  Miscellaneous Power Saving Techniques

  Linux halts the CPU in the idle cycle to further reduce power
  consumption. Early reports of OS/2, Win3.1/95, NT, and Linux showed
  Linux to use far less power than DOS-based O/S's that spun in the idle
  loop and consumed power -- this may have changed hence it would need
  research to validate.

  Most Linux-users tend to leave their computer on for years whenever
  possible. However, several modern BIOS's support an unattended
  powerup, and with cron you can even do an unattended shutdown. No need
  to leave the computer on night after night.


  3.  Alternative Power Supplies - Sun, Wind, Water

  See a survey of links at Eklektix <http://www.eklektix.com/solar> .


  4.  Noise Reduction

  Most of the noise emitted by a computer is produced by the fan, the
  harddisk and the speakers.


  4.1.  Fan


  o  libsensors0 is a library to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors

  o  lm-sensors "Kernel drivers to read temperature/voltage/fan sensors.
     This is a module for reading the temperature/voltage/fan sensors in
     Linux via the LM78/79 chip and possibly sensors on the SMBus
     (System Management Bus, usually found in P6 and P-II systems). The
     LM80 and a LM78-clone called W83781D are also supported."
     http://www.lm-sensors.nu/ <http://www.lm-sensors.nu/>

  o  ACPI, see APM chapter


  4.2.  Harddisk

  The noise of the hard disk can be very disturbing, see man hdparm to
  reduce the spin of the disk.


  4.3.  Speakers

  For the console setterm -blength 0 and for X xset b off turns the bell
  off. See also PCMCIA-HOWTO, and much more details in the Visible-Bell-
  mini-Howto by Alessandro Rubini.


  5.  Saving Consumables (Paper, Ink, etc.)


  5.1.  Printing of Drafts / Multiple Pages on One Sheet of Paper

  Use psutils package to put more than one page on one sheet of paper.
  This collection of utilities is for manipulating PostScript documents.
  Page selection and rearrangement are supported, including arrangement
  into signatures for booklet printing, and page merging for n-up
  printing.

  Often HTML pages are not optimised for printing. You may use html2ps,
  a HTML to PostScript converter, to print HTML pages. "This program
  converts HTML directly to PostScript. The HTML code can be retrieved
  from one or more URLs or local files, specified as parameters on the
  command line. A comprehensive level of HTML is supported, including
  inline images, CSS1, and some features of HTML 4.0."

  Or you may use mpage to print 2 up or 4 up (PS documents or ASCII
  text). This may be used to save up to 50 percent or more of your
  paper.


  5.2.  Reading From the Monitor Instead From Paper

  Or use less/xless/gless as a viewer instead of printing. You can view
  PostScript documents with gs and view PDF documents with either xpdf
  or acroread (from Adobe <http://www.adobe.com>). Ask yourself, do you
  --really-- need a hardcopy each time you decide to print something
  out.

  What are the reasons why people don't read from the monitor:

  o  Reading is slower up to 30 percent, see N.N.
     <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9602.html>. The speed can be
     improved by better hardware (e.g. TFT display, greater screen,
     though this is against the other below to take smaller CRTs) and
     better display software (type-1, t1lib, truetype, freetype).

  o  Paper seems better organizable and more secure to some people. I
     suppose this can be treated by better software (e.g. Linux) and
     hardware, too.

  Some people use handheld PC (e.g. PalmIII, Newton Message Pad, Psion
  5) to carry around documents to read rather than printing them out.


  5.3.  Other Techniques

  Another means of saving paper is through the use of comments and
  redline/strikeout markings when exchanging a document with a co-
  worker/colaborator. For example, a draft could be written using
  WordPerfect, then E-MAILed to a co-worker. They could update the draft
  and send it back to you. You can use WordPerfect's redline/strikeout
  features to see the changes. The document need not be printed until it
  is "final" or in "final draft" status.

  Question: Can you use the back side of paper in a laser printer? I
  have not had much luck. You can use the paper that has been in a laser
  printer in an inkjet printer by using the other side.

  You should purchase smaller computers and monitors when possible. This
  will save packaging material translating into less solid waste. For
  example the box for a 15" CRT monitor is 2-3 times the size of the box
  for a 15" LCD monitor. Linux works well with 15" LCD monitors on
  smaller computers like the Netwinder or E3000
  <http://www.thinworks.com/campaign/try_e3000.html> .

  Some have expressed the concern that LCD displays may use more toxic
  materials and manufacturing processes than CRT displays, hence their
  usage actually may be worse on the environment. The original
  information above concerned the solid waste issue, which is fairly
  tangible and hence more controllable.

  Does anyone know of studies or additional research to help clarify and
  resolve this issue?

  Recycle your used paper, ink, and packing materials.

  You may use refillable printer cartridges. In Germany the are marked
  with the Blauer Engel label.

  Laser printer cartridges can often be used much more longer if you
  shake them when the message toner low appears at the message panel.

  Wade W. Hampton provided the biggest part of this chapter.

  From Ralf Muschall I got this suggestions:


  o  LaTeX documents: Using \usepackage{ccfonts} replaces the usual
     fonts by ones with wider lines and bolder serifes, improving
     readability at low resolutions. They are darker (i.e. use more ink)
     than the CM fonts and not as beautiful, so I would not recommend
     them for normal-size printings.

  o  Size-Reduction: Instead of psnup or other parts of the pstools I
     recommend the psnup written in Perl4 by Malcolm Herbert (it's from
     1994, and no longer maintained but however there is a descendant of
     it called yup, available at yup
     <http://redback.spyda.net/~mjch/yup/>.


     It has a lot of options, which allow to set all 4 margins and the
     inner gutter separately. Since reduced documents are not very
     pretty anyway, this can be used to reduce the margin, leaving more
     place for the text. This probably requires some experimenting
     (trying new values over and over, checking the result with
     ghostview).

     The normally used options are:

  o  -p2 (or -p4 etc., like -2 in the old psnup)

  o  -NIH (don't decorate)

  o  -l10 -r20 -b30 -t40 (add to margins)

  o  -g50 (add to gutter)

     (these values vary depending on the papersize and the margins of
     the original, negative values are allowed).



  o  Different ink printers are more or less capable to print on the
     backside of already used paper sheets. Try different manufacturers.
     Older Canon ink printers offer 360 dpi, older HP ink printers 300
     dpi. The readability of 4 pages/sheet using LaTex 10pt lies in
     between this features.

  o  Non-Linux: If you have to work with MS-Windows you should get the
     original Adobe-PostScript-Driver, instead of using the ones from
     MS-Windows. These fonts offer more than one page per paper sheet.
     AFAIK both psnup programs don't work with Adobe-PS, MS-Windows-PS
     and the PostScript extracted from MS-Windows-PDF files.

  o  Ghostscript has a new output format pswrite, which creates output
     in correct PostScript. This feature can be used to repair broken
     PostScript e.g. from Microsoft drivers, allowing their
     postprocessing with psnup etc.

  o  impose+ <http://imagic.weizmann.ac.il/~dov/freesw/impose+/> is a
     set of PostScript utilities. The main program is impose, which is
     used for two-up printing of DSC-compliant PostScript (including
     that from Netscape, dvips, and FrameMaker). It makes an effort to
     remove white space from the printout by probing the original
     PostScript for the bounding box of the printed area. This makes the
     output much more esthetic than does a simplistic layout of non-
     cropped original pages.


  6.  Recycling of Consumables (Paper, Printer Cartrigdes, CD, Floppies,
  Tapes)

  All of these consumables are recycleable. I have put a list of URLs
  into appendix H. You may start this process by separating different
  kinds of "waste". There should be included some words on the
  difficulties of recycling (data security, motivation, costs, ...).


  7.  Reduction of Radiation, Electro Magnetic Fields, Heat


  o  monitors are a source of radiation and electro magnetic fields.
     They may be reduced by lead filters, LCD displays. Some eco labels
     like TCO95 include maximum levels of radiation, etc.

  o  especially larger number of PCs or can heat a room very much
     therefore it might be necessary to cool the room. This ca be
     reduced by using standby (powerdown) techniques.



  8.  Extending the Life Cycle of your Hardware


  8.1.  Recycling of Hardware

  The commercial computer market is largely driven by vendors seeking to
  sell new hardware and software. There is no commercial marketing
  benefit in promoting reuse.

  Hence Linux doesn't require big hardware, it's very useful if you like
  or need to use old and small hardware.


  8.1.1.  Supported CPU Families

  Linux runs on Intel-compatible processors, including Intel's 386, 486,
  Pentium, Pentium Pro and Pentium II, and compatible processors by AMD,
  Cyrix and others.

  Linux doesn't support the 286 CPU family yet. But there are some
  efforts at ELKS http://www.linux.org.uk/ELKS-Home/index.html
  <http://www.linux.org.uk/ELKS-Home/index.html> or
  http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/ <http://www.elks.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>.

  If you like, you may use Minix <http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html>
  one of the predecessors of Linux. Minix supports 8088 to 286 with as
  little as 640K memory.

  Of course there are also ports to other systems, such as ALPHA,
  PowerPC, etc. For details about systems which are supported by the
  Linux Kernel, see the Linux FAQ <http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-
  FAQ.html> .

  The ARM is a fast AND low-power alternative. For example, the
  Corel/Rebel Netwinder is based on the ARM processor see Rebel
  <http://www.rebel.com> and Strong-ARM
  <http://developer.intel.com/design/strong/>.
  8.1.2.  Dealing with Limited Resources or Tuning the System

  This chapter is taken from my Laptop-HOWTO.


  8.1.2.1.  Related HOWTOs



  1. LBX-HOWTO

  2. Small-Memory-HOWTO


  8.1.2.2.  Introduction

  To deal with limited space, memory, CPU speed and battery power, I
  have written this chapter.


  8.1.2.3.  Small Space


  8.1.2.3.1.  Introduction

  There are different types of techniques to gain more disk space, such
  as sharing of space, freeing unused or redundant space, filesystem
  tuning and compression. Note: some of these techniques use memory
  instead of space. As you will see, there are many small steps
  necessary to free some space.


  8.1.2.3.2.  Techniques



  1. Stripping: Though many distributions come with stripped binaries
     today it is useful to check this. For details see man strip. To
     find every unstripped file you can use the file command or more
     convenient the tool findstrip. Attention: don't strip libraries,
     sometimes the wrong symbols are removed due to a bad programming
     technique.

     A recommendation from Russell Marks <rus@beeb.net>:

     These days a lot of people compile with -g, which I find a bit
     annoying (though AFAIK this only loses you disk space, in
     practice).

     strip has a --strip-debug option which doesn't strip symbols, but
     does still get rid of the debugging stuff. This is almost as good,
     in many cases, and it's ok to use it on libraries. As it happens, I
     recently got SuSE 6.3, so I can give you a live example:


     ___________________________________________________________________
     bash-2.03# cd /lib
     bash-2.03# ls -l libc.so.6
     -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root      4223971 Nov  6 16:22 libc.so.6
     bash-2.03# strip --strip-debug libc.so.6
     bash-2.03# ls -l libc.so.6
     -rwxr-xr-x   1 root     root      1200355 Dec  8 00:13 libc.so.6
     ___________________________________________________________________



  2. Perforation: zum(1)reads a file list on stdin and attempts to
     perforate these files. Perforation means, that series of null bytes
     are replaced by lseek, thus giving the file system a chance of not
     allocating real disk space for those bytes. Example: find . -type f
     | xargs zum

  3. Remove Odd Files and Duplicates: Check your system for core files,
     emacs recovery files <#FILE#> vi recovery files <FILE>.swp, RPM
     recovery files <FILE>.rpmorig and patch recovery files. Find
     duplicates, you may try finddup. Choose a system to name your
     backup, temporary and test files, e.g. with a signature at the end.

  4. Clean Temporary Files: , e.g. /tmp, there is even a tool tmpwatch.

  5. Shorten the Log Files: usually the files in /var/log. There are
     some nice helpers for this task around, e.g. savelog .

  6. Remove Files: Remove files which are not "necessary" under all
     circumstances such as man pages, documentation /usr/doc and sources
     e.g. /usr/src .

  7. Unnecessary Libraries: You may use the binstats package to find
     unused libraries (Thanks to Tom Ed White).

  8. Filesystem: Choose a filesystem which treats disk space
     economically e.g. rsfs aka Reiser Filesystem. Tune your filesystem
     e.g. tune2fs. Choose an appropriate partition and block size.

  9. Reduce Kernel Size: Either by using only the necessary kernel
     features and/or making a compressed kernel image bzImage.

  10.
     Compression: I didn't check this but AFAIK you may compress your
     filesystem with gzip and decompress it on the fly. Alternatively
     you may choose to compress only certain files. You can even execute
     compressed files with zexec

  11.
     Compressed Filesystems:

     - For e2fs filesystems there is a compression version available
     e2compr , see http://debs.fuller.edu/e2compr/
     <http://debs.fuller.edu/e2compr/> .

     - DMSDOS which enables your machine to access Windows95 compressed
     drives (drivespace, doublestacker). If you don't need DOS/Windows95
     compatibility, i.e. if you want to compress Linux-only data, this
     is really discouraged by the author of the program. See
     http://fb9nt-ln.uni-duisburg.de/mitarbeiter/gockel/software/dmsdos/
     <http://fb9nt-ln.uni-
     duisburg.de/mitarbeiter/gockel/software/dmsdos/> .

  12.
     Partition Sharing: You may share swap-space (see Swap-Space-HOWTO)
     or data partitions between different OS (see mount). For mounting
     MS-DOS Windows95 compressed drives (doublespace, drivespace) you
     may use dmsdos
     http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/
     <http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/filesystems/dosfs/>.

  13.
     Libraries: Take another (older) library, for instance libc5 , this
     library seems to be smaller than libc6 aka glibc2 .

  14.
     Kernel: If your needs are fitted with an older kernel version, you
     can save some space.

  15.
     GUI: Avoid as much Graphical User Interface (GUI) as possible.

  16.
     Tiny Distributions: There are some distributions available which
     fit from one 3.5" floppy to 10MB disk space and fit for small
     memories, too. See Laptop-HOWTO
     <http://home.snafu.de/wehe/index_li.html>


  8.1.2.4.  Harddisk Speed

  Use the tool hdparm to set up better harddisk performance. Though I
  have seen laptop disk enabled with striping, I can't see a reason to
  do so, because IMHO aka RAID0 striping needs at least to different
  disks to increase performance.


  8.1.2.5.  Small Memory


  8.1.2.5.1.  Related HOWTOs



  1. Small-Memory-mini-HOWTO by Todd Burgess <tburgess@uoguelph.ca >
     http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~tburgess
     <http://eddie.cis.uoguelph.ca/~tburgess>

  2. Modules-mini-HOWTO

  3. Kerneld-mini-HOWTO


  8.1.2.5.2.  Techniques

  Check the memory usage with free and top.

  Mergemem Project  <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/ulrich/mergemem/>.
  Many programs contain memory areas of the same content that remain
  undetected by the operating system. Typically, these areas contain
  data that have been generated on startup and remain unchanged for
  longer periods. With mergemem such areas are detected and shared. The
  sharing is performed on the operating system level and is invisible to
  the user level programs. mergemem is particularily useful if you run
  many instances of interpreters and emulators (like Java or Prolog)
  that keep their code in private data areas. But also other programs
  can take advantage albeit to a lesser degree.

  You may also reduce the kernel size as much as possible by removing
  any feature which is not necessary for your needs and by modularizing
  the kernel as much as possible.

  Also you may shutdown every service or daemon which is not needed,
  e.g. lpd, mountd, nfsd and close some virtual consoles. Please see
  Small-Memory-mini-HOWTO for details.

  And of course use swap space, when possible.

  If possible you may use the resources of another machine, for instance
  with X, VNC or even telnet. For more information on Virtual Network
  Computing (VNC), see http://http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
  <http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc> .

  8.1.2.6.  Low CPU Speed

  You may want to overdrive the CPU speed but this can damage your
  hardware and I don't have experience with it. For some examples look
  at Adorable Toshiba Libretto - Overclocking
  http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html
  <http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html>.


  8.1.2.7.  Tiny Applications and Distributions

  A small collection yet, but I'm looking for more information.


  1. BOA - "Lightweight and High Performance WebServer. boa is a single-
     tasking HTTP server. That means that unlike traditional web
     servers, it does not fork for each incoming connection, nor does it
     fork many copies of itself to handle multiple connections. It
     internally multiplexes all of the ongoing HTTP connections, and
     forks only for CGI programs (which must be separate processes.)
     Preliminary tests show boa is capable of handling several hundred
     hits per second on a 100 MHz Pentium."

  2. MGR - a graphical windows system, which uses much less resources
     than X.

  3. Low Bandwidth X - Alan Cox in LINUX REDUX February 1998 " .. there
     are two that handle normal applications very nicely. LBX (Low
     Bandwidth X) is the official application of the X Consortium (now
     OpenGroup www.opengroup.org). Dxpc
     http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~zvonler/dxpc
     <http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~zvonler/dxpc> is the alternative most
     people prefer. These systems act as proxy X11 servers and compress
     datastreams by well over 50 percent for normal requests, often
     reaching a reduction to 25 percent of the original bandwidth usage.
     With dxpc, X windows applications are quite usable over a 28.8
     modem link or across the Internet."

  4. blackbox - "This is a window manager for X. It is similar in many
     respects to such popular packages as Window Maker, Enlightenment,
     and FVWM2. You might be interested in this package if you are tired
     of window managers that are a heavy drain on your system resources,
     but you still want an attractive and modern-looking interface."

  5. linux-lite - distribution based on a 1.x.x kernel for systems with
     only 2MB memory and 10MB harddisk. URL see above.

  6. smallLinux -  http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/
     <http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/> . Three disk micro-distribution
     of Linux and utilities. Based on kernel 1.2.11. Root disk is ext2
     format and has fdisk and mkfs.ext2 so that a harddisk install can
     be done. Useful to boot up on old machines with less than 4MB of
     RAM.

  7. cLIeNUX - client-use-oriented Linux distribution.

  8. minix - not a Linux but a UNIX useful for very small systems, such
     as 286 CPU and 640K RAM http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html
     <http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/minix.html> . There is even X support
     named mini-x by David I. Bell
     ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/
     <ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/> .

  9. screen - tiny but powerful console manager. John M. Fisk
     <fiskjm@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu> in LINUX GAZETTE July 1, 1996 :"It's
     a GUI, GUI, GUI, GUI world! " - or so the major OS manufacturers
     would have you belief. Truth is, that while this is increasingly
     the case, there are times when the command line interface (CLI) is
     still a very good choice for getting things done. It's fast,
     generally efficient, and is a good choice on memory or CPU
     constrained machines. And don't forget that there are still a lot
     of very nifty things that can be done at the console." "screen is a
     full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal
     between several processes, typically interactive shells. Each
     virtual terminal provides the functions of the DEC VT100 terminal
     and, in addition, several control functions from the ANSI X3.64
     (ISO 6429) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g., insert/delete line and
     support for multiple character sets). Real multiuser support, split
     screen support, hardstatus emulation support, configurable window
     seperator and hardstatus strings, permanent window seperator, many
     new escapes, logfile timestamps and flush timeout, optional builtin
     telnet, optional Braille support, support for history compaction."

  10.
     tinyirc - "A tiny, stripped down IRC Client. Doesn't have most of
     the more advance commands in the ircII family of IRC Clients, nor
     does it have any color, but it works, and it's tiny."

  11.
     tinyproxy - "Tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP proxy designed to do
     the job with a minimum of system resource use. It's ideal for small
     networks where a larger HTTP proxy such as squid might be overkill
     or a security risk. This simplicity also makes tinyproxy an ideal
     candidate for customization - it takes very little time to read and
     understand the tinyproxy source, and thus you can start adding your
     own desired features on short order."


  8.2.  Other Techniques

  NiCad batteries need to be discharged periodically to prevent the
  memory effect and prolong their lifespan.

  Batteries such as NiCad, Lead Acid, and NiMH contain TOXIC chemicals.
  Techniques should be taken to prolong their lifespan, and when you do
  discard them, they should be recycled, not thrown in the trash.

  One technology to watch is the "Iron" battery mentioned in the article
  at N.N. <http://news.excite.com/news/r/990815/01/science-battery-iron>
  . Such a battery could reduce some of the toxic waste problems
  associated with used batteries, however such a battery is probably a
  few years away.

  Some remarks about backlights in laptops, monitors (screensavers),
  harddisks (hdparm), etc. have to be written.


  8.3.  Other Operating Systems

  Courtesy of George White <gwhite@bodnext.bio.dfo.ca>:

  Or you can buy an older computer (SGI, Sun, NeXT) that comes with unix
  and is capable of running a wide range of open source software. In
  some cases (SGI Indigo2) you can still run current OS versions, in
  others you may do better with an open source OS such as Linux, but in
  either case you have access to lots of good software and tools to
  write your own.

  The lower power consumption of older computers means you get more
  reserve time from an UPS or can use a small alternative power source
  if you don't have access to "mains" power.

  9.  X10 - Home Automation System

  "X-10 modules are devices that plug into an electrical outlet and
  allow you to remotely control the power to a lamp or an appliance that
  is plugged into them. There are also X-10 modules that install in
  place of wall switches to control lights, and there's one that can be
  used to set back a thermostat."

  These X10 <http://www.x10.com> folks make a really cool dongle called
  the Firecracker. These allow for the control of X10 devices via a
  serial-port of your PC. Programs like bottlerocket and gtk-x10 allow
  Linux programs to control X10 devices using the Firecracker device.
  You may be able to get the Firecracker, a remote control, a receiver,
  and a lamp module for as little as $5.95 U.S. (special promotion).

  GNU Phantom.Home <http://www.joethielen.com/phantom/home/> is a
  computer controlled home automation system. The software includes a
  circuit diagram for building the Phantom.Home.Controller, a simple
  circuit board that attaches to your PC's parallel port. Using the
  combination of hardware/software you can control (i.e. flip on or off)
  nearly any 120V device. And with a little bit of electronics know-how,
  you can probably control nearly any device at any voltage by modifying
  the circuit board to meet your needs. The simple circuit included can
  be created and built for around $25. The modules cost around $10
  (basically a heavy duty relay).

  Turn that light off when not in use!


  10.  Uninterruptable Power Supply - UPS

  You should use a UPS if you have many thunderstorms in the area. That
  will save hardware, software, your time, and money, and help prevent
  you from throwing out that old monitor, CPU, or modem when it gets
  trashed by lightening. For details consult the UPS-HOWTO
  <http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/UPS-HOWTO.html>.

  UPSs do save hardware, save work, etc. In areas prone to lightening,
  they could save hours of work each week, potentially translating into
  power savings. They do save hardware in areas prone to power outages.
  There is some concern over their additional usage of AC power. If
  anyone has any studies or research on this issue, could they please
  forward it to us? That would be an interesting question to post to
  APC, BEST, etc.


  11.  Games

  Personally I'm not much a player of computer games but probably they
  can be used for environmental education. In a first investigation I
  found lincity and Real Life, please check their usefulness by
  yourself.


  o  lincity build & maintain a city/country. You are required to build
     and maintain a city. You must feed, house, provide jobs and goods
     for your residents. You can build a sustainable economy with the
     help of renewable energy and recycling, or you can go for broke and
     build rockets to escape from a pollution ridden and resource
     starved planet, it's up to you. Due to the finite resources
     available in any one place, this is not a game that you can leave
     for long periods of time. This game is similar to the commercial
     simulation game with a similar name. This package provides files
     common to both the X and SVGALIB versions of the game.


  o  Real Life <http://www.sunysb.edu/philosophy/RealLife.html> - "In
     Conway's Game of Life every cell is either fully alive (has the
     value of 1) or completely dead (has the value 0). In Real Life this
     restriction to bivalence is lifted to countenance -real-valued-
     degrees of life and death. Real Life contains Conway's Game of Life
     as a special case; however, Real Life, in contrast to Conway's Game
     of Life, exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions which
     is characteristic of chaotic systems."

  o  Sierra <http://www.sierra.com> has produced (some time ago) Eco
     Quest 1 - Lost in Rainforest and Eco Quest 2 - The Search for Cetus


  12.  Ecology Software (Simulation, Datacollection, Statistics, etc.)

  Though I know there is some MS-Windows based software which is used in
  ecological science (there is even a branch environmental informatic),
  I know only Ecolab available for Linux yet. But I guess Linux software
  (for instance databases or statistics programs) may easily adopted.
  Also it might be possible to use a Linux cluster to solve ecological
  simulations.


  12.1.  Ecolab

  Ecolab is both the name of a software package and a research project
  that is looking at the dynamics of evolution.
  http://parallel.acsu.unsw.edu.au/rks/ecolab.html
  <http://parallel.acsu.unsw.edu.au/rks/ecolab.html> EcoLab is a system
  that implements an abstract ecology model. It is written as a set of
  Tcl/Tk commands so that the model parameters can easily be changed on
  the fly by means of editing a script. The model itself is written in
  C++.


  12.2.  OpenClassroom

  "OpenClassroom - distribution for Education. Pre-alpha. homepage:
  OpenClassroom <http://www.openclassroom.org/> is integrating a package
  of software that allows educational and community organizations to
  create communities of knowledge by connecting their existing PCs (old
  or new) into a network, both local and worldwide, such as the
  Internet. A central focus of this initiative is to allow such
  organizations to extend the usable life of their equipment by bringing
  them state-of-the-art software that runs on their existing PCs. Our
  toolset allows organizations and citizens to own and operate their own
  digital printing press."


  12.3.  Tierra

  Tierra <http://www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra/tierra.html> is a tool
  for studying digital evolution and ecology that runs on Linux and
  other OSes.


  12.4.  Linux in Environmental Research

  Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton: Linux is ideally suited for use as a
  research tool for environmental experiments. There are small embedded
  Linux solutions that can be used for remote monitoring or telemetry.
  There are VERY small Linux implementations from PC-104 systems to
  embedded systems like the uCsimm <http://www.uclinux.com>.  Linux even
  flew on the shuttle controlling biological experiments....  Linux has
  been used for weather research on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft.

  Linux is also an ideal platform for researching ecological and
  environmental information via the Internet using standard WWW-based
  tools like Netscape.

  Linux may even be used to model complex biological and environmental
  processes.  A (beowulf cluster <http://www.beowulf.org> could be used
  to run complex simulations of environmental processes, for example
  Earthdome <http://www.methaz.com/earthdome.htm> and a survey at A
  COLLECTION OF LINKS OF VISUALIZATION & SIMULATION OF SELF-ORGANIZED
  SYSTEMS <http://platon.ee.duth.gr/~soeist7t/Visualizations/>.


  12.5.  SWARM

  SWARM <http://www.swarm.org> is a software package for multi-agent
  simulation of complex systems that is being developed by the Swarm
  Development Group (SDG).

  Swarm is intended to be a useful tool for researchers in a variety of
  disciplines, especially artificial life. The basic architecture of
  Swarm is the simulation of collections of concurrently interacting
  agents: with this architecture, we can implement a large variety of
  agent based models. The source code is freely available under GNU
  Licensing terms.


  12.6.  Climate-Dynamics

  Climate-Dynamics <http://www.climate-dynamics.rl.ac.uk> is project to
  share computer client resources to analyze the climate.


  12.7.  UNCERT

  UNCERT <http://uncert.mines.edu/> is a geostatistical uncertainty
  analysis package applied to groundwater flow and contaminant transport
  modeling. This package was developed for evaluating the inherent
  uncertainty in describing subsurface geology, hydraulic properties,
  and the migration of hazardous contaminants in groundwater flow
  systems. It is well suited for the aforementioned purposes, but is
  also sufficiently general to be usable by researchers in a wide range
  of disciples.


  12.8.  EcoTopia

  The EcoTopia <http://www.ecotopia.org> web site uses computer
  simulation to model Santa Cruz, California as an ideal environmental
  community. For Ecotourists and Green Consumers, EcoTopia strives to
  offer the nation a model of integration of technology and
  environmental remediation using computer modeling and image
  forecasting.


  13.  Related Projects, Mailing Lists and Newsgroups


  o  Though I searched the WWW, I couldn't find neither a dedicated
     newsgroup nor a mailing list yet. So I decided to create the Eco-
     Com mailing list. You can subscribe to this list via email. Write
     to <eco_com-subscribe@listbot.com>, and you will be sent a
     verification message.

  o  Repair FAQ <http://www.repairfaq.org> .


  o  Obsolete Computer Helpline
     <http://www.ncsc.dni.us/fun/user/tcc/cmuseum/helpline/helpline.htm>
     .

  o  386 World <http://come.to/386> by Gaute Hvoslef Kvalnes
     <386@altavista.net> . He provides one of the greatest recources
     available on 386 computers and software. Though his work is mainly
     related to MS-Windows, he also supports Linux.

  o  "The Electronic Green Journal <http://www.lib.uidaho.edu>,
     published by the University of Idaho Library, is a professional,
     refereed publication devoted to disseminating information
     concerning sources on international environmental topics including:
     assessment, conservation, development, disposal, education,
     hazards, pollution, resources, technology, and treatment. We are
     academically sponsored; our focus, however, is to publish articles,
     bibliographies, reviews, and announcements for the educated
     generalist as well as the specialist. We welcome original
     contributions from authors on any of the above topics." . You may
     also find a survey about Environmental Resources on the World Wide
     Web there.


  14.  Credits

  Thanks to:


  o  Verena Lorenz-Meyer <lome@cs.tu-berlin.de>

  o  George White <gwhite@bodnext.bio.dfo.ca>

  o  Wade W. Hampton <whampton@staffnet.com>

  o  Daniel Pirone <cocteau@wact.net>

  o  Knut Suebert <ksueber@gwdg.de>

  o  Ben De Rydt <ben.de.rydt@pandora.be>

  o  Hanno Mueller <kontakt@hanno.de>

  o  Bernhard Reiter <bernhard@uwm.edu>

  o  Yan Wong <yan.wong@linacre.ox.ac.uk>

  o  Robert Horn <rjh@world.std.com>

  o  Martin Pool <martinp@mincom.com>

  o  Andreas Gohr <ballermann@>

  o  Lionel, "trollhunter" Bouchpan-Lerust-Juery,
     <trollhunter@linuxfr.org>

  o  Hristo Bojinov <hib@mit.edu>

  o  Ralf Muschall <rmuschall.fih@t-online.de>

  o  Russell Marks <rus@beeb.net>

  o  Martin Pool <martinp@mincom.com>

  o  Malcolm Herbert <Malcolm.Herbert@fulcrum.com.au>


  o  Sotiris Vassilopoulos <Sotiris.Vassilopoulos@betatech.gr>

  o  Thomas Boutell <boutell@boutell.com>

  o  Matthias Scheller <mscheller@access.diax.ch>

  o  Martin <Niteskate@aol.com>

  o  Jun Morimoto <morimoto@xantia.citroen.org>

  o  Georg Schwarz <schwarz@physik.tu-berlin.de>


  15.  Revision History


  o  v0.1, 18 June 1999, first draft

  o  v0.2, 10 September 1999, changed <htmlurl ... > tag to <url ...>,
     another motto, added appendix B about MP3 player, created and added
     eco_com mailing list, added chapter about alternative power
     supplies, added recommendations for buying a new computer, improved
     screensaver section, added UPS chapter, added chapter about
     hardware design, minor changes

  o  v0.3, 17 September 1999, added information about Tierra, added
     information about wasting of resources during computer production,
     added some comments about UPS, minor changes

  o  v0.4, 05 December 1999, added appendix G about other operating
     systems, added information about CD recycling, added appendix H
     URLs of recyclers, removed link to Linux Games Survey, added links
     to SWARM, UNCERT and Climate-Dynamics, added chapter about Energy
     Star label (courtesy of Robert Horn), minor changes

  o  v0.5, 04 January 2000, some additional information about PostScript
     utilities, new chapter Caveats, URL corrections and minor changes

  o  v0.6, 01 March 2000, link to Japanese translation added and some
     spell checking (thanks to Jun Morimoto), correction of URLs


  16.  Copyright and Disclaimer

  Copyright (C) 1999 by Werner Heuser. This document may be distributed
  under the terms set forth in the LDP license at COPYRIGHT
  <http://linuxdoc.org/COPYRIGHT.html>.

  The information in this document is correct to the best of my
  knowledge, but there's a always a chance I've made some mistakes, so
  don't follow everything too blindly, especially if it seems wrong.
  Nothing here should have a detrimental effect on your computer, but
  just in case I take no responsibility for any damages incurred from
  the use of the information contained herein. All trademarks belong to
  their owners.


  17.  Appendix A - Linux with Laptops


  17.1.  Battery

  Has to be written. See LDP - Battery-HOWTO
  <http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Battery-Powered.html> by Hanno
  Mueller, too.

   apmd-rhcn-2.4phil-1 by RedHat ftp://rhcn.redhat.com/pub/rhcn/
  <ftp://rhcn.redhat.com/pub/rhcn/> contains an unofficial patch for
  shutting down the PCMCIA sockets before a suspend and patches for
  multiple batteries.


  17.2.  PCMCIA Card Services and Advanced Power Management

  Quoted from the LDP - PCMCIA-HOWTO  <http://linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/PCMCIA-
  HOWTO.html>: "Card Services can be compiled with support for APM
  (Advanced Power Management) if you've configured your kernel with APM
  support. ...  The PCMCIA modules will automatically be configured for
  APM if a compatible version is detected on your system. Whether or not
  APM is configured, you can use cardctl suspend before suspending your
  laptop, and cardctl resume after resuming, to cleanly shut down and
  restart your PCMCIA cards. This will not work with a modem that is in
  use, because the serial driver isn't able to save and restore the
  modem operating parameters. APM seems to be unstable on some systems.
  If you experience trouble with APM and PCMCIA on your system, try to
  narrow down the problem to one package or the other before reporting a
  bug. Some drivers, notably the PCMCIA SCSI drivers, cannot recover
  from a suspend/resume cycle.  When using a PCMCIA SCSI card, always
  use cardctl eject prior to suspending the system."

  You should use the internal modem in a laptop instead of a PCMCIA
  modem, if possible (it may be a WinModem).


  17.3.  Power Saving Techniques


  1. If you don't need infrared support, disable it in the BIOS or
     shutdown the IrDA device driver. There are also some IrDA features
     of the kernel which are useful for saving power.

     In the specifications of my HP OmniBook 800 it is recommended to
     turn off the IR port, if it is not in use, because it may consume
     up to 10 percent of the battery time.

     If necessary, you may also try to disable the Fast RRs feature in
     the IrDA section of the kernel. This option will give you much
     better latencies but will consume more power.

  2. PCMCIA services consume much power, so shut them down if you don't
     need them.

  3. I'm not sure to which extend the backlight consumes power. WARNING:
     AFAIK this device can only bear a limited number of uptime circles.
     So avoid using screensavers too much.

  4. For some examples to build batteries with increased uptime up to 8
     hours look at Adorable Toshiba Libretto
     http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html
     <http://www.cerfnet.com/~adorable/libretto.html>.

  5. For information about APM look at the APM chapter above.

  6. A hacked rclock  <http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~bbense/toys/>.
     Booker C. Bense has hacked the rclock program to include a simple
     battery power meter on the clock face.

  7. xbatstat <http://www.jaist.ac.jp/~daisuke/Linux/xbatstat.html>. A
     battery level status checker for Linux and X.

  8. KDE http://www.kde.org <http://www.kde.org> provides KAPM, Kbatmon
     and Kcmlaptop. Written by Paul Campbell kcmlaptop is a set of KDE
     control panels that implements laptop computer support functions,
     it includes a dockable battery status monitor for laptops - in
     short a little icon in the KDE status bar that shows how much
     battery time you have left. It also will warn you when power is
     getting low and allows you to configure power saving options.

     Similar packages you may find at the GNOME project
     http://www.gnome.org/ <http://www.gnome.org/> . See the software
     maps at both sites.

  9. Please see Battery Powered Linux Mini-HOWTO by Hanno Mueller,
     hanno@lava.de http://www.lava.de/~hanno/
     <http://www.lava.de/~hanno/> for more information.

  10.
     toshiba-fan Turn the fan on a Toshiba Pentium laptop on or off.
     This is a command line utility to turn the fan of a Toshiba laptop
     on or off, or view its current state. It should work on all Toshiba
     Pentium laptops that have fans.


  18.  Appendix B - MP3-Hardware-Decoder at Parallel Port

  In the German computer magazine CT <http://www.heise.de/ct/> issue
  9/1999 p. 200 and 10/1999 p. 260 I found an article about turning an
  old PC (from 286 upward) into a MP3 player, by using a MP3-Hardware-
  Decoder at the parallel port. Authors Homepag <http://www.ieee.rwth-
  aachen.de/mp3/> .

  Also mentioned there, is a software by Klaus Peichl <http://cip8.e-
  technik.uni-erlangen.de:8080/hyplan/kspeichl/mpegcd.htm>, which
  doesn't need a hardware decoder.

  Though both programs are DOS based, I mention them here. I hadn't time
  to look for an according Linux solution.

  Cajun <http://www.cajun.nu/> is a program that allows you to turn any
  computer (>75mhz) into a massive audio jukebox for your car or home.
  It uses the matrix-orbital serial display and supports the IRman
  infra-red remote control interface. Soundcard output is delivered to
  your (car or home) stereo for amplification. The software supports a
  hotlist and shuffle mode. It includes FM/Video4Linux support,
  icecast/shoutcast support, CrystalFontz serial display support, and
  choice of mpg123 or xaudio for driving the sound card.


  19.  Appendix C - Bibliography


  o  Ellringmann, H. /Hrsg.): Softwarefuehrer Umweltschutz. Anbieter -
     Produkte - Maerkte; 1999ff.

  o  Koellner, W. / Fichtler, W.: Recycling von Elektro- und
     Elektronikschrott; 1996

  o  Rohwedder, W.J. "Rocky" / Alm, Andy: Using Computers in
     Environmental Education; 1994

  o  Schloegl, M.:Recycling von Elektro- und Elektronikschrott; 1995

  o  Tiltmann, K.O. (Hrsg.): Recyclingpraxis Elektronik; 1994

  o  Andreas Grote: (be): Gruene Rechnung - Das Produkt Computer in der
     Oekobilanz - Report, Oekologie, Rohstoffverbrauch, Energieverbrauch
     und Schadstoff-Emissionen bei Herstellung, Betrieb und Entsorgung,
     EPA, Energy Star, Green-PC (c't 12/1994, Seite 92) CT
     <http://www.heise.de/ct/> .


  20.  Appendix D - Recommendations for Buying a New Computer

  Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton (modifications by wh): Purchase a low-
  power computer such as a laptop or network computer. These typically
  don't use as much power as desktop systems. For example, someone on
  the WWW had a Corel/Rebel Netwinder powered by solar cells. I find it
  funny that an "Energy Star" desktop still has a 300W power supply and
  uses far more power than a computer like the Netwinder which uses
  something like 10 Watts of power, (though this is consistent with the
  Energy Star goals for computer equipment, since they have targeted
  unused power consumption).

  Maybe there should be a new class of computers called "Energy Miser"
  (or similar) that use nearly an order of magnitude less power than
  Energy Star systems?

  To save power for the display, one could purchase a LCD monitor
  instead of a CRT. LCD monitors consume 30-40 Watts of power versus the
  100's of Watts used by most monitors.  The price of an LCD is still
  2-3 times that of a similar monitor, but as LCDs become more widely
  used, the price will come down.

  Make sure that any new computer purchase includes APM-compliant
  hardware and low-radiation. Use TCO, DPMS or Energy Star compliant
  monitors.

  R Horn <rjh@world.std.com> wrote: " I personally have found the
  Lawrence Berkeley Labs - LBL <http://eande.lbl.gov/> web site to be
  the best source for information on energy efficient equipment. They go
  into considerable details on how to reduce energy consumption from
  many kinds of equipment, including much more than computers.  They
  also have a good collection of links to related sites. The Energy Star
  program is defined by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which
  has a web site on it. So far all of the Energy Star regulations have
  been defined to reduce energy usage without requireing change or
  restrictions on regular usage.  There is an amazingly large amount of
  electricity consumed by idle equipment (computers, televisions,
  microwave ovens,...) and also large amounts consumed unnecessarily by
  equipment that must be continuously one (emergency exit signs, traffic
  lights, ...). Since this energy can be saved without asking users to
  make any compromises on performance, it is being targeted first.

  Somewhere on the LBL web site they have the actual power consumption
  figures for various PCs. The 300W power supply is quite misleading.
  Actual power usage varies depending upon what programs you run and
  whether the disks can be powered down. Genuine usage while in
  operation is usually in the 50-75W range. When the system is idle, it
  drops significantly.

  The NetWinder is a nice machine, but does force operational
  compromises. The peak CPU performance is much lower.  The operating
  system is not Windows.  And there are other limitations. A closer
  comparison is the typical laptop PC.  These can generally be operated
  from a modest solar panel because their average power drain is quite
  low.  With these you can see the cost vs power consumption tradeoff.
  They achieve the same performance as the desktop units, but the low
  power consumption has doubled or tripled the cost.

  (I personally use a Psion.  A decent slow computer that requires only
  200mw of power. It may even run Linux once they deal with some of the
  ROM issues.)


  The big debate in setting the energy star regulations was deciding
  which would have greater overall benefit: small negligible cost
  improvements to almost all equipment sold, or greater improvements at
  much higher cost? Could that cost be invested elsewhere to greater
  benefit?  How will the purchasers react to the higher cost? So far the
  consensus has been that improving a large number of machines at
  negligible cost is wiser than improving a smaller number of machines
  at high cost."


  21.  Appendix E - A New Environmentally Friendly Hardware Design

  Courtesy of Wade W. Hampton and Knut Suebert: New hardware designs
  that plan to use Linux should take advantage of environmentally
  friendly technologies such as low-power CPUs e.g., the ARM from: Intel
  <http://developer.intel.com/design/strong/>, environmentally friendly
  battery design, low-power displays (e.g., non-backlit LCDs), smaller
  packaging, etc.  Linux supports a WIDE variety of hardware and
  technologies. These could be leveraged into powerful, flexible,
  environmentally friendly Linux-based solutions.

  An "Environmental Rating" could be created for new Linux-based
  hardware and even some Linux-based software such as bottlerocket
  (X10). Devices such as the Netwinder or the uCsimm would receive high
  ratings for their size, power consumption, capabilities, etc.

  At Telepolis (German Computer Magazine)
  <http://www.telepolis.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/1367/1.html> you might
  find an article about wasted resources during computer manufacturing.

  Generally speaking PPC CPUs consume less power than x86 CPUs.


  22.  Appendix F - Computer Related Eco Labels

  Currently I have only this small list: TCO, DPMS or Energy Star Blauer
  Engel <http://www.blauer-engel.de/> (Germany), Energy Label - Group
  for Efficient Appliances (GEA).


  23.  Appendix G - Other Operating Systems


  23.1.  DOS

  To my surprise there are still many tools available to make old 286 PC
  useful. I started a search for 286 at Simtel.Net
  <http://www.simtel.net/> and found many useful shareware programs. For
  instance:


  o  Full-featured LAN for MSDOS computers, 286+req
     <ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/lan/neos-10.zip>

  o  RoseMail, PCBoard offline mail, 8086/286 exe's
     <ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/pcboard/rm172b.zip>

  o  Multitasking/multiuser environment for 286-586
     <ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/sysutl/vmix285.zip>

  There is even a free DOS around, see The OS Developers Homepage
  <http://www.500mhz.net/ndx.html>



  23.2.  MS-Windows

  A power saving utility CPUIDLE
  <http://www.bugcomputer.com/cpuidle/index.html > is available. Another
  one for older versions of MS-WindowsNT is available at Niteskate
  <http://members.aol.com/niteskate/ntpwr.zip>.


  24.  Appendix H - URLs of Recylers


  o  REMEDIA <http://www.remedia.de/mitte.htm> - Germany - recycling of
     data storage media (CD, floppy, tape)

  o  ALCAD <http://www.alcad.com/site_map.htm > - worldwide - Ni-Cd
     Battery Recycling

  o  CD-COLLECT <http://www.cd-collect.com/> - CD recycling

  o  Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation <http://www.rbrc.org/>
     RBRC is a non-profit, public service organization created to
     promote the recycling of Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) rechargeable
     batteries.

  o  The European Portable Battery Association (EPBA) <http://www.epba-
     europe.org> is the European organisation of companies
     manufacturing, selling or distributing portable batteries. The
     mission of the EPBA is to ensure that the ideal conditions are
     created for responsible development of the portable battery
     industry in Europe. Acting in the common interests of all of its
     members, the EPBA aims to sustain a competitive industry in an
     increasingly complex commercial climate.

  o  Battery Council International <http://www.batterycouncil.org > is a
     not-for-profit organization with the mission of promoting the
     interests of the international lead-acid battery industry. With
     more than 175 members worldwide, the Battery Council International
     (BCI) brings together lead-acid battery manufacturers and
     recyclers, marketers and retailers, suppliers of raw materials and
     equipment, and industry consultants.



