On Tue, 2002-06-04 at 02:07, neal mcdermott wrote:
Okay, here was my original question:
I have heard from a lot of places that one of the strengths of Linux is that you do not have to reboot it all the time. I am under the impression that this is easier on your hardware and I am wondering if that is true.
Dear Neal, It's a legitimate question. I too, try to take good care of my hardware. It's not that I need to set a world record for longevity, it's just that I'd rather not be wasteful. Maybe I'm just conservative. Laptops generally don't last as long as desktops. Aside from being banged around, the biggest reason for their shorter life-span is that they run hotter. The compact size of the case and the fact that there is usually no place to install a fan works against keeping the machine cool. On some laptops, you can practically fry an egg on the keyboard. So I would say that keeping the machine running constantly to avoid rebooting would be a false economy - you may be shortening its life expectancy. What can you do to keep a laptop cool? I live in stinking hot Taiwan, so this is an issue.Since I'm not planning to move to Alaska, I use three techniques to keep cool: 1) I rest the laptop on top of two paperback books (or whatever) on both sides of the computer, leaving a nice big gap on the underside of the machine - that "breathing space" helps keep it cool. A friend of mine who uses his laptop strictly at home went even further and glued four wine bottle corks onto the corners of the computer, giving the machine four "legs." 2) On hot days I have a large electric fan blowing across the keyboard (and myself) keeping both me and the machine cool. 3) The trickle charging of the battery creates a great deal of heat. As long as I'm someplace where I have electric power, I remove the battery while the computer is in use. If I want to recharge the battery, I do it with the computer turned off (actually, I seldom compute in an airplane or cafe, so my battery remains uninstalled at least 95% of the time). hope this helps, Robert Storey