Last week when traveling to Europe for FOSDEM and other business meetings, I had picked up a new 9-cell battery for a Lenovo ThinkPad T60. While an additional three battery cells will noticeably extend your battery life, you can also extend your battery life by taking a few simple steps to optimize your Linux desktop that will also reduce your power consumption and heat output.

One of the most touted advantage of Windows 7 over Windows XP and Linux is improved battery life. This may be trues for newer netbooks that would be optimized for Microsoft new operating system, but don't expect any gain from installing Microsoft's latest release on you current netbook! Many people have actually reported reduced battery life on their netbooks after an upgrade to Windows 7.

ZaReason is shipping a Linux-ready, 10-inch netbook that uses the Intel Atom N450 processor and is claimed to offer eight hours of battery life.

Four years ago I purchased my first Eee PC, an Eee PC 1000HD. This model Eee PC had a battery life rating of just 3 hours in Windows XP and it would only last 1 hour on battery using my distribution of choice at the time, Ubuntu.

There are plenty of things that I love about Linux, but when it comes to maximizing battery life performance, there is very little to desire. On the frontend, you might be running very few applications, but unknown to you, there are actually plenty of applications running in the backend that are quietly draining away your battery. Compiz, workspace, dock are few such examples.

Battery Status is a project for GNOME, that shows information about laptop battery state. It comes with a lot of additional features, so usual icon of GNOME Power Manager can be removed from Notification/Indicator Area.

CherryPal announced an Atom-based "Bing" netbook that runs Linux or Windows XP, and offers a claimed five hours of battery life. The company also announced an upgraded version of its Linux-based nettop, the CherryPal C114, and launched a "Green Maraschino" open-source Linux distribution supporting the Bing.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will allow your computer to continue to function for a period of time when mains power is lost. This can help you to smooth over short-term (1-5 minute) loss of power by running from the UPS battery. When the UPS battery is running low, the UPS can signal your computer to shut down cleanly. With a UPS you can avoid lengthly filesystem or RAID checks due to abrupt power loss. Here are some tips on UPSes in general and how to set one up to protect a Linux machine, even if the model you have lacks explicit Linux support.

Digital Gadgets has announced an 8.9-inch netbook computer that will sell under the Sylvania brand name. Offered in four different colors, the Linux-compatible "g netbook MESO" includes a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 80GB hard drive, four-cell battery, webcam, and 802.11b/g wireless networking, according to the company.