Evaluating 'system is idle'

[Stefanos A.]

2011/7/18 Marty Jack <martyj19 at comcast.net>

> 1.  The power state of the monitor can change.  This is mediated by the X
> server, which has the FD to the kernel driver that actually does the work.
>  The X server runs a timer that is reset whenever there is activity on an
> input device.
>

This is not 100% accurate. The X server only monitors mice, keyboards and a
few other devices it is aware of.

This is rather inconvenient for users who play games with e.g. joysticks, as
the monitor will turn off randomly when the system is actually in use. X
offers a way to disable power saving but unfortunately this acts globally
(i.e. if your program crashes, then the monitor will never turn off, which
is even worse).

It would certainly be convenient if the kernel provided an idle counter but
I don't claim to know whether that's the optimal solution. However, what X
does it not a real solution either.
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