[conspire] idle computer

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> Right, but you have to assume, know that you can always be wrong, that
> since he is mentioning the copying of files, that this is likely failing
> (or wy mention it), and that would be due to a suspend to ram or disk.

I am disinclined to answer people's queries about Linux based on 
assumptions, on my part, about what the person meant, unless I 
have a large degree of confidence in those assumptions.  You want to 
make those assumptions?  Fine by me, but I'm not.

He didn't mention anything 'failing', for starters.

No, I don't have to 'assume'.  ;->


> If he is using gnome, he can turn that off, or turn it off within the
> system admin toolkit of whatever distro he is using.

Now, _this_ advice strikes me as uselessly vague.


    
> I tend to feel for the fan to be on or off.

That won't tell you a damned thing about whether disk activity is
ongoing.


> Its completely unfocused.  But good money is on the fact that gnome or
> kde is the admin of the suspend mode.

Again, this is uselessly vague.  Moreover, it's in error about the way
ACPI is implemented on Linux.

/usr/bin/gnome-power-manager or /usr/bin/powerdevil is merely a
graphical front-end for upower and dbus-send (formerly devicekit-power
or hal), and for cpufreq-set.



> And yet my dell opteron seems to handle it better than I've seen any
> other system do so before.

That doesn't contradict what I said, Ruben.

> My guess, and I'm being ignorant, is that as long as not keyboard or
> mouse movent happens, it goes to sleep, regardless of any other
> functions.

Could well be.  Experimentation would tell, obviously.