Every night, I put my computer to sleep. But should I be shutting it down every now and then? For example, maybe once a week or once a month?
Just curious to see this question answered from a Linux gamers’ perspective.
I always shut down my PC. No need to keep it wasting electricity (even a little) when I’m away and I can wait a bit for it to boot again
I shutdown my computer whenever I’m done using it.
I’m old. For me, a PC is like a TV or radio. When I’m done using it, I turn it off.
Which means saving my work and shutting it down. I don’t put it to sleep or standby. And I set my session manager to start a new session every time.
People who keep unsaved documents and hundreds of browser tabs open are weird. Use bookmarks!Turning your TV off and on frequently shortens its lifespan significantly, You know… Honestly, turning anything off and on frequently shortens its lifespans significantly, even lightbulbs.
The last TV I owned was a CRT in a wooden frame with several darts stuck in it, and it had lasted since the 90s.
Always gonna be someone that argues.
Hell, if I said Nuclear Bombs were dangerous, someone would come in and be all like " Yeah, well, you say that, but Tsutomu Yamaguchi survived two atomic bombs, so they cant be that dangerous!"
So, 2 old people here, and counting. I finish my day with ‘paru - Syu’ and followed by 'poweroff" almost every day. The only exception is if I move away from my PC and then decide I’m just not going back that day.
I see no point in keeping my power hungry monster awake 24/7. I’m in any game less than 3 minutes after a cold boot.
If you mean by “should”, because you fear losing performance, like Windows, then no. But I also see no point in keeping it on 24/7. When I’m done with my computer, I just turn it off. If I want to play a video game, the absolute maximum amount of time it takes for me is 120 seconds until I’m in a game from cold start. Constantly feeding my power-hungry monster just isn’t worth it.
I shut my computer down whenever I intend to stop using it for more than a couple of hours. So that means every night, and some other times as well. Starting the computer doesn’t take very long. So I don’t feel like it is a hassle or trouble. Being completely shut down saves a bit of power; and there are other minor benefits.
One benefit is that it prevents accidentally waking the computer in the middle of the night, filling the room with light and noise while I fumble in a tired state trying to shut it down. (Not saying that happens often, but it has happened - and it is not nice.)
Always. When I’m not using my PC it’s turned off. I only turn it on when I’m using it, and then turn it off when I’m done. Yes, this includes things like going onto short shopping trips.
The only times I’ve let my PC on when I’m not directly using it is when it’s rendering something.
My server is the only thing that’s on 24/7. My and my partner’s PCs shut down while we’re not using them. It takes like 10 seconds, maybe, to boot up.
While I’m not a gamer, I’m a Linux user from kernel version 0.97.
I shut my system down for hardware changes, when the electrician is working, and when I go on holidays. I reboot after kernel updates.
Same.
Every day when I go to bed
I unplug the PC when I’m done. There are regular thunderstorms during this season.
So power surges happen from time to time. To prevent my PC from frying I completely cut the power source after I’m done and away from home. And since I’m using an old ass dell monitor (really should start looking for an modern one) I don’t have to keep the monitor connected to power for pixel cleaning.
I’m no expert, but using Linux as well, I do reboot mostly since A: my pc wakes up randomly when put to hibernation (haven’t fixed it yet). B: I’m using SSDs so a cold boot takes no time at all.
What kind of hibernating are you referring to? Since if its on RAM I can imagine possible data loss when the power is cut.
Oh, I thought hibernation is always understood as suspend to disk and sleep as suspend to ram.
Every time I’m done with it. Same for work. Even for laptops.
The only gaming device I can put to sleep for a longer period of time without feeling weird about it is my Steam Deck, and even in such cases it either means I’ll be back in minutes (essentially putting a game on standby) or a few hours tops.
If I’m leaving for more than 24 hours -> off
After any update where the distro equivalent of
needrestartsays something is using an old binary, I just reboot instead of restarting individual servicesI pretty much only ever shut down if I need to open the case for some reason, or if the battery dies.
There is occasionally an update where things don’t work right without rebooting, but shutting down is pretty much completely unnecessary unless you’re concerned about power consumption.
One should consider power consumption regardless of the price. If it is no server, you can prolong the life of your hardware not running it 24/7.
I’ve read the same argument in the other direction: that repeated thermal cycling of electronic components degrades more than keeping them at operating temperature constantly. I’m sure there’s some truth to both arguments and the best approach depends on particular use cases.
As far as needing to power down to reset the state of the hardware and the OS fully, that’s totally unnecessary with linux.
If I’m not actively using my PC for anything it is shut down and turned off from the wall socket. 3 monitors and a pc on the same extension, even when they’re not switched on still draw power. I’m in the UK though and electricity isn’t cheap.
It takes all of maybe 5-10 seconds from power on to desktop, I’ve barely gotten comfortable in my chair before it’s ready for my login, I can’t see any reason whatsoever to leave my PC powered on, ever.
