GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 662625
Default idle-dim-time too distracting
Last modified: 2013-01-24 07:59:56 UTC
The default value for the idle-dim-time key is 10 seconds, which means the screen will usually dim when you're simply reading some text on the screen. This is very distracting. I would assume the purpose of this function is to save energy when the user is away from the computer. In this case a default value of 60 or 120 seconds would not distract the user while still being completely effective. It seems the default value for Mac OS X is 30 (it's a public Mac so I can't tell for sure if that's a factory default, but it should be). I haven't been able to check a Windows system yet.
On a stock Lion installation I got: Battery: Dim after 1:30, screen off after 2:00 On AC: Dim after 8:00, screen off after 10:00 The dimming seems to be tied to the time before the screen turns off.
commit 116aa86231ed4a4bb20c7eecb6d7a415d17df71f Author: Richard Hughes <richard@hughsie.com> Date: Fri Mar 16 10:19:07 2012 +0000 power: Make the idle dim time 90 seconds to match OSX Resolves: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=662625
Do we use the same dim time for on battery and not?
(In reply to comment #3) > Do we use the same dim time for on battery and not? In 3.8, we do, with a default value (120 seconds) that should be usable for both battery and on AC. Please file a separate bug if that's not wanted. Changes would need to happen to gnome-session (which handles the idle-delay) and gnome-settings-daemon (which uses a dim timeout based on the idle-delay).