Battery life is a valuable metric for improving Linux laptop power management.

Battery life measurements require repeatable workloads. While BAPCo MobileMark 2005 is widely used in the industry, it runs only on Windows XP. Intel's Open Source Technology Center has developed a battery life measurement tool-kit for making reliable battery life measurements on Linux with no special lab equipment necessary.

This paper describes this Linux battery life measurement tool-kit, and some of the techniques for measuring Linux laptop power consumption and battery life.

This paper also includes example measurement results showing how selected system configurations differ.

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