[CDBUG-talk] An idea of mine.

[Steve Moon]

> Firstly, my laptop seems to get extraordinary battery life under FreeBSD
> as compared to Windows. This is what started the thought process.

That's the key point -- and it seems too good to be true. Yes, 
FreeBSD is more efficient than Windows in many respects, but the
display still needs to be powered up the hard drive needs to spin from
time to time, and the CPU needs to keep your lap warm.

I would investigate why the battery life is poor before diving into
this -- could it be the student laptop batteries are abused by light
use/recharge/light use/recharge cycles that eventually kill Lion
batteries? Are the correct power management drives installed,
configured, and working?

On the other hand, if you're switching from running apps locally to on
the terminal server, then you're replacing hard drive/cdrom use with
wifi radio power drain which is likely less and would explain the
extended battery life.

Seems like a side-by-side test using a students laptop with poor
battery life would give you a more definitive answer.

Steve-