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I was searching for some benchmark between hardware between Linux server and it version for desktop. All that I could find was between different kinds of servers mainly Linux and windows.

Anyway, my question is if the Linux server, Ubuntu 14.04 to be more specific, perform better and consume less than the desktop version.

If is relevant for the answer, my application to the system I want to deploy is just a simple rest service for my mobile app. I am the only client for the service and so I want to plan how much my energy bill will grow and compare it to sheared hosts.

The machine I will (or not) deploy my server is a Samsung NP-R540 with a dual-core Intel® Core™ i3 CPU M 380 @ 2.53GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM.

Cristian Ciupitu
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joaonrb
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  • I would imagine there is more to be gained by choosing something like a Raspberry Pi or similar to run it on than choosing different software versions - e.g. SSD and low power CPU or SOC that doesn't need cooling. – Mark Setchell Jul 18 '14 at 18:34

2 Answers2

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In most regards, yes.

A system without a GUI (guessing you are not going to slab an X server on top off it but run it pure CLI) generally has a lower power consumption than a fullblown desktop machine. Primarily since you do not need to utilize a power hungry GPU that emits heat. Same goes for sound.

General tip for using a normal PC as a server is to remove graphic cards if possible and use only the built in. If the box is missing a built in, try to get a hold of a passively cooled graphics card.

Disable everything that you are not going to need in BIOS.

For example, Floppy controllers, IDE controllers (if you have both IDE and SATA and will not be using IDE drives) Built in sound. PS/2 controllers (if existing, and you connect keyboard via USB) Firewire (if not used) Fake-raid (if not used)

Furthermore removing any stupid LED lights (power LED indicator may be nice though), and perhaps extra fans if they are mounted solely in order to cool down a gaming graphics card.

Needless to say, a server version of a Linux distribution is smaller, leaving out the packages that makes up the GUI environments and associated services. Thus leaving a smaller footprint both on disk and on power consumption since you wont have 500 packages laying around that are updated needlessly.

Lord Sumner
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I think it largely depends on what you run. The default server and desktop distributions will have different services and even the kernels might be optimised differently. You can use a tool like powertop to analyse what exactly is consuming power and optimise accordingly.

Noufal Ibrahim
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