07-23-2020, 10:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-23-2020, 10:25 AM by Dendrocalamus64.)
I never really had this problem. Then I tried Manjaro KDE again, and the battery started going down.
I'd been using a very light-colored theme in Mate, with black text on a white background. When the default theme is murky green text on a moody grey background, the user turns the backlight way up, and then most of that energy is lost heating the monitor.
It's not like a CRT where the electron gun only excites the phosphors you use, and green text on black is energy efficient, since the human eye is most sensitive to green light. With an LCD, the backlight is on regardless, and the more of the screen that is high-opacity, the more light you're wasting.
Whatever desktop environment you are on, go for the black UI elements & text on a white background option, and then turn the backlight down until it still doesn't hurt your eyes, and the power usage should go down.
(Yes, I know you said you turned it down, but you can turn it down more this way. And I never had trouble during long compiles.)
I'd been using a very light-colored theme in Mate, with black text on a white background. When the default theme is murky green text on a moody grey background, the user turns the backlight way up, and then most of that energy is lost heating the monitor.
It's not like a CRT where the electron gun only excites the phosphors you use, and green text on black is energy efficient, since the human eye is most sensitive to green light. With an LCD, the backlight is on regardless, and the more of the screen that is high-opacity, the more light you're wasting.
Whatever desktop environment you are on, go for the black UI elements & text on a white background option, and then turn the backlight down until it still doesn't hurt your eyes, and the power usage should go down.
(Yes, I know you said you turned it down, but you can turn it down more this way. And I never had trouble during long compiles.)
