[conspire] idle computer

[Paul Zander]

A new discovery:

The LMDE control panel has GUI's for both Power Management and Screen Saver.  Screen Saver has a link to the PM GUI.

The Screen Saver GUI also has a setting that defines the computer as IDLE after 5 minutes of inactivity.  Being a screen saver, it is reasonable to assume that this means keyboard/mouse inactivity.

So here is the answer to my original question.  After 5 minutes of copying files for the install with no mouse or keyboard activity (Why would there be any during install?) the screen goes black and then the Power Management takes over.

Now my "Step 0 for installation" is to check BOTH power management AND screen saver settings. Set to Never or a very long time.  After install is complete, re-visit the settings as desired.

--- On Tue, 7/19/11, Paul Zander <paulz at ieee.org> wrote:

> From: Paul Zander <paulz at ieee.org>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] idle computer
> To: 
> Cc: conspire at linuxmafia.com
> Date: Tuesday, July 19, 2011, 1:31 PM
> Thank you for the replies.
> Personally, I have not been "hibernating", but gathering
> information (and also busy with other tasks).
> 
> TERSE
> ACPI as well as screen savers, including SETI and BOINC,
> apparently determines idle from lack of I/O, especially
> keyboard and mouse, but sometimes also LAN traffic.
> 
> I will consider nice and ionice if I choose to support
> BOINC or similar projects.
> 
> From www.energystar.gov,   “ saving
> $25–75 per PC annually “ So this is not a big deal if $$
> are all that matter.
> 
> I am interested in comments regarding hard-drives. Hard
> drives do make noticeable noise in a quite home. My opinion
> is that stopping mechanical devices should reduce wear and
> improve life, but I don't have any data to support that
> opinion. Others think drives should be kept running. In any
> event, disk drives don't consume much power.  More
> under VERBOSE.
> 
> 
> VERBOSE
> I did a series of experiments looking at the power
> management settings using XP, Live DVD LMDE and installed
> LMDE. After sorting out the differences in wording, the
> setting values are different. I won't fault the creators of
> the live DVD for doing a simplified version. Next time I
> install, I will try to remember “step 0: Set power
> management to Never.”
> 
> So far I have not found the official definition of
> “idle”, but I did find few descriptions. All relate to
> I/O and not to CPU usage. 
> 
>  * Idle-ness is defined by an absence of mouse or keyboard
> activity
> 
>  * Accomplishing power management has four components. The
> first is to monitor activity levels of the processor, input
> devices (such as the keyboard and mouse), and communication
> peripherals (network or modem)
> 
>  * Someone who spends a lot of time reading on screen will
> need a longer delay period than someone who spends most of
> their time typing. 
> 
> I did find several reports from university IT departments.
> Some encouraging powering down at night, others wanting
> computers turned on so they could be updated during the
> night. Neither of these apply to me.
> 
> From www.energystar.gov regarding hard-drives:
>  * and some studies indicate it would require on-off
> cycling every five minutes to harm a hard drive."
> Source: Rocky Mountain Institute Home Energy Brief #7
> Computers and Peripherals.
> 
>  * "The belief that frequent shutdowns are harmful persists
> from the days when hard disks did not automatically park
> their heads when shut off; frequent on-off cycling could
> damage such hard disks. Conventional wisdom, however, has
> not kept pace with the rapid technological change in the
> computer industry. Modern hard disks are not significantly
> affected by frequent shutdowns."
> Source: "User Guide to Power Management for PCs and
> Monitors", Bruce Nordman, Lawrence Berkeley National
> Laboratory, January, 1997, LBNL-39466
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 7/14/11, Tony Godshall <tony at of.net>
> wrote:
> 
> From: Tony Godshall <tony at of.net>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] idle computer
> To: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Cc: conspire at linuxmafia.com
> Date: Thursday, July 14, 2011, 5:08 PM
> 
> ...
> >  nohup ./seti &
> >
> > ...then change that to
> >
> >  nohup nice ./seti &
> >
> > The 'nice' utility, part of GNU coreutils, accepts
> numerical values for
> > additional niceness (reduced runtime priority) to
> assign to tasks at the
> > time they start up.  I would guess this information
> is passed in some
> > fashion as a request to the kernel's scheduler.
> >
> > 'nice' defaults to a +10 adjustment, i.e., just 'nice'
> is the same as
> > 'nice -n 10'.
> ...
> 
> ionice -c3 is good too... it helps in cases where the
> process does
> heavy io with low CPU use (like copying files)
> 
> apt-get install ionice
> 
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