[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 128115] New: Writer less efficient with battery power than gedit

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128115

            Bug ID: 128115
           Summary: Writer less efficient with battery power than gedit
           Product: LibreOffice
           Version: 6.2.7.1 release
          Hardware: x86-64 (AMD64)
                OS: Linux (All)
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: medium
         Component: Writer
          Assignee: libreoffice-bugs at lists.freedesktop.org
          Reporter: Nick_Levinson at yahoo.com

Description:
Using Writer and gedit for the same amount of time wears battery power out
faster in Writer's case. When people need to use LO for long stretches on DC,
that can become a problem.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. With a laptop, note what you plug into it, including indirectly. Assume all
of it might consume power. (I usually plug in nothing but power and a flash
thumb stick.)
2. Set your laptop to display how much battery capacity is left. These steps
assume you'll know the percentage remaining.
3. Check that the battery is fully charged.
4. Use the laptop on battery (DC) power only. Disconnect the AC.
5. Use LO Writer continuously for a while. How long depends on battery
capacity.
6. When you've used a substantial portion of battery capacity, note what
percentage of the charge remains.
7. Recharge, such as by plugging into the AC, until full. During recharging,
you can use any software or none and you can connect anything or nothing, as
you wish.
8. Exit LibreOffice.
9. Plug into the laptop only what was plugged in for step 1 and plug nothing
else into it, even indirectly.
10. Disconnect the AC and use your laptop, with the same things plugged in as
in step 1.
11. Use gedit (this likely works with other text editors, too). Use gedit a
lot. Don't use other apps.
12. Use the laptop until it has cosumed exactly as much battery power as it did
during step 5.
13. Compare the time for step 5 to the time for step 12.

Actual Results:
Elapsed time until the battery had run to a given percentage of capacity was
25-40% shorter when the time was used up with LO Writer rather than with gedit.

Expected Results:
The elapsed time should have been only slightly different, if different at all.


Reproducible: Always


User Profile Reset: Yes


OpenGL enabled: Yes

Additional Info:
LibreOffice Writer also appears to consume laptop battery power faster than
does Document Viewer, which I use for PDFs.

I don't know why there's any difference at all. I don't have a printer
connected and I don't use my USB ports differently for LO. I think hard drives
(where both apps are installed on my machine) spin continuously absent sleep or
hibernation, so the HDD's behavior shouldn't matter, but perhaps read access is
far more frequent for swapping code components in and out of memory, and gedit
or Document Viewer, which have fewer settings, may not be swapping after an
initial load. I do use Writer to generate a few PDFs (gedit doesn't do that)
but making them doesn't take long.

I don't know if the effect is the same with other LibreOffice apps. I don't
know how other word processors, text editors, PDF viewers, and other kinds of
apps compare. I don't know if Writer performs differently on other platforms
(mine is Fedora 30 Linux, kept evergreen). My laptop has 3.8 GiB of RAM;
otherwise, I don't think the hardware platform should affect the savings for an
app. I generally exit apps I don't need at the moment, including LO.

If the consumption is due to frequent swapping, perhaps LO should sense how
much RAM is available and swap larger or more components at a time, reducing
swap operations and reducing the need to read from the HDD.

When LibreOffice can outperform other word processors (assuming doing so gets
promotion by the organization offering LO), it could gain market share, or the
percentage of the installed base. Being able to work longer when not plugged
into AC power is an advantage.

I am not prepared to test the latest version, meant for early adopters. This
version is part of the distro I use, kept evergreen, and is still offered at
the LO website.

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