Abstract—Many portable systems deploy operating systems

(OS) to support versatile functionality and to manage resources,

including power. This paper presents a new approach for using OS

to reduce the power consumption of IO devices in teractive systems.

Low-power OS observes the relationship between hardware

devices and processes. The OS kernel estimates the utilization

of a device from each process. If a device is not used by any

running process, the OS puts it into a low-power state. This paper

also explains how scheduling can facilitate power management.

When processes are properly scheduled, power reduction can

be achieved without degrading performance. We implemented a

prototype on Linux to control two devices experimental results

showed nearly 70 power saving on a network card and a hard

disk drive-Abstract—Many portable systems deploy operating systems

(OS) to support versatile functionality and to manage resources,

including power. This paper presents a new approach for using OS

to reduce the power consumption of IO devices in interactive systems.

Low-power OS observes the relationship between hardware

devices and processes. The OS kernel estimates the utilization

of a device from each process. If a device is not used by any

running process, the OS puts it into a low-power state. This paper

also explains how scheduling can facilitate power management.

When processes are properly scheduled, power reduction can

be achieved without degrading performance. We implemented a

prototype on Linux to control two devices　experimental results

showed nearly 70　power saving on a network card and a hard

disk drive