GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 427815
Idle and inactive times confusion
Last modified: 2020-11-06 20:14:09 UTC
Some SuSE users have reported confusion about the idle/inactive timeouts in gnome-screensaver and gnome-power-manager, not understanding the difference between the two. From a previous conversation with Richard: "Is inactive the same thing as idle? I would argue inactive is where the user isn't doing anything and idle is where the machine isn't doing anything. Again, confusing as hell for the end user." So, we should fix this confusion.
I can confirm this. It seems that gnome-power-manager sleep times are directly connected to screensaver idle time. The lowest value you can choose is the screen saver time plus one minute. This is not so good since the lowest possible time is two minutes which is much on battery. The other problem is that you can't lock screen after five minutes if you want e.g. monitor to sleep on ac after five and on battery after two minutes. You have to choose one minute for screen saver which could be very annoying especially with locking. The other point is that this is not very intuitive and people could think that the lowest value they could choose are elven minutes (default screen saver idle time is ten minutes) which are very much on battery. The separation of ac and battery is great but it doesn't help much with a linked screen saver or you disable the screen saver which could be dangerous if you forgot to lock the PC on your own.
*** Bug 446258 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 446892 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Wow, I've always wondered about this too. I don't know if this should be in a new bug or not, but when you disable the screensaver, it seems it's not possible to get the screen to suspend with g-p-m.
Yes, seems g-p-m and g-s are too tied (which is good, but adds this kind of problems). So, Richard/William, what do you think?
regarding Vincent's comment #4: wow, I was about to report an issue about this out of frustration of figuring this out after two years. What is needed here as the next action to get this solved? Is it g-p-m's fault, gnome-screensaver's fault? And while we are at it, why not merge g-p-m and the gnome screensaver dialog?
yay, mid-air collision. Forgot to add: "It baffles me that I need to enable a screensaver for the screen power save to work!"; this is very non obvious and it can take a long time for the user (such as me) to figure out that this is not a bug, but g-p-m's suspend depending on a screensaver to be set to activate.
Yes, I think some kind of merge of g-s and g-p-m would help solving this.
Merging gnome-screensaver and gnome-power-manager is an interesting idea, but it's not required to fix this bug. This bug could be fixed merely by having gnome-power-manager ignore the screensaver "idle" setting altogether, letting you set the computer to go to sleep even before the screensaver would normally kick in. Separately, gnome-screensaver could become smart enough to display the text (for example) "On battery, the screensaver won’t appear because the computer sleeps after 30 minutes", and even provide a button for opening the Power Management Preferences. But fixing this bug does not require waiting for either of those things.
*** Bug 495602 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 472995 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Possible solutions that I propose: 1) Add a duplicate of screensaver-idle settings to gnome-power-preferences 2) Add some text explaining why the lowest value for putting display to sleep is X.
This should be fixed since Gnome 2.28. The setting is now independent (while still inflexible).
I think the GNOME Power Manager Manual could do with some definitions. My installation still says "Put computer to sleep when inactive for:" but neithe sleep nor inactive are described in the manual. Is sleep 'hibernate' or 'suspend'? I've read the answers above & am still not sure. The manual should explain. Does 'inactive' mean keyboard & mouse? or running applications? Load below 50%? or 5%? Again, the manual should explain the meaning of words used. Properly.
(In reply to comment #14) > Is sleep 'hibernate' or 'suspend'? I've read the answers above & am still not > sure. The manual should explain. > > Does 'inactive' mean keyboard & mouse? or running applications? Load below > 50%? or 5%? Again, the manual should explain the meaning of words used. > Properly. I think this would be a really nice first patch for somebody to send. Any volunteers?
Richard, is this bug an issue worth to fix? Based on comment #15, I think it is. Hence marking as NEW. I am also adding the gnome-love keyword.
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