THE energy efficiency battle between Linux and Windows is intensifying, with each claiming to be better at cutting power consumption and avoiding environmental damage.

The Linux Foundation has already clarified its plans to bring improved power management to the operating system through its Green Linux Initiative.

The working group is making it easy for kernel developers, hardware manufacturers, system vendors, distributions and end users to collaborate on the requirements for more effective power management in Linux.

Projects include the "tickles kernel" which enables the processor to sleep between tasks and better power management to USB peripherals.

Rival Microsoft recently talked about the power management features of Vista in an interview on SearchDataCenter.com. Stephen Berard, program manager of the Windows Platform Architecture team, discussed how new features would reduce server energy consumption in the data centre, and how the features would be more widely adopted than they were in Windows Server 2003.

"Energy efficiency is much more in demand," he said.

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