Fedora To Decide What To Do About GNOME 3.28's Auto-Suspend Default

[DerCaveman]

And saying that this is because a EU regulation, this is bullshit.

Well I can't use the standard debian kernel because I want to use wlan channel 13 in germany. I have to patch and compile the kernel by myself. Brcmsmac does not care about regulatory domains because of US laws...

[Danny3]

On the one hand, I love the idea of smarter power defaults for desktops. On the other hand, I was hit by this after I upgraded and ran an overnight test build on a Workstation. Fortunately, this was just a test, but it did set me back a day.

Maybe there should be some kind of brief 1st run setup, like Windows that configures these things after asking the user?

Asking the user is too much for them, they love the auto-guessing crapware.
If they would want to ask the user, then they wouldn't have to do auto-doing stuff.
No wonder I don't like any distro that is using Gnome 3 by default.
And saying that this is because a EU regulation, this is bullshit.
We don't see TVs music players, light bulbs, cars auto-shutting themselves off.

[calc]

Yes, auto suspend could be annoying - the best solution in my opinion could be opt-out option during Gnome3 first start after installation/update (the same silly window than now teaching user how to use mouse or something

Also it could be good thing. It is 2018 and Linux distributions still has many issues with suspend/hibernate. Hibernate in Fedora is even disabled by default and it is not user friendly to enable it.

Perhaps suspend enabled by default will force companies to fix it. Intel already declared that they will look at it.

Yea, Linux itself hasn't had problems with suspend/resume in a very long time, its probably been 20+ years since I had a problem with it. What still happens though is companies make really bad hardware that won't work properly without quirks per specific model to make them work, or require rewritten ACPI DSDT files patched at boot time, etc.

As Fedora itsn't really geared for newbies, eg Fedora 27 installer locks up on boot with Nvidia devices without the kernel setting nouveau.runpm=0, letting the users find out their hardware is buggy instead of disabling suspend is probably a better option. Then they could point the users at how to update their BIOS/UEFI, rewrite ACPI DSDT if needed, etc to actually get the system working properly. And above all else annoy the companies that produce POS hardware.

[Delgarde]

Video players also have a switch to inhibit the suspend, but AFAIK there is a bug where they do not reset the counter, so once they stop inhibiting the suspend, if the timer is at zero, due to the bug a machine will go straight into suspend without giving the user any chance of making another choice.

From what I gather, that's because it's basically using the X11 screensaver mechanisms (and the Wayland equivalents)... essentially, the bit responsible for performing the suspend is being notified of the idle timeout, and while it can ignore that notification while inhibiting is active, it can't reset the timer and therefore acts on it as soon as inhibiting is stopped.

[Danniello]

Yes, auto suspend could be annoying - the best solution in my opinion could be opt-out option during Gnome3 first start after installation/update (the same silly window than now teaching user how to use mouse or something

Also it could be good thing. It is 2018 and Linux distributions still has many issues with suspend/hibernate. Hibernate in Fedora is even disabled by default and it is not user friendly to enable it.

Perhaps suspend enabled by default will force companies to fix it. Intel already declared that they will look at it.

[You-]

Better, if Auto-Suspend will be a standardized as a power management feature for all desktop environment, but conditioned by various events, and should not be happening if some task running in background torrents, downloads, long compilations or a movie playing in full screen and many others. An during OS install or at first login user should be questioned anyway to know that setting exist. Users can find Auto-Suspend a useful feature if is implemented sufficiently flexible for here/his daily current needs. Alongside coupled with messages via DBus (before Auto-Suspend happens) or something to trigger some Auto-Save operations if needed just in case for a power outage.

That is the situation. The default is 20 minutes. But any use of the cursor or keyboard will reset the timer.

Video players also have a switch to inhibit the suspend, but AFAIK there is a bug where they do not reset the counter, so once they stop inhibiting the suspend, if the timer is at zero, due to the bug a machine will go straight into suspend without giving the user any chance of making another choice.

A user can also change the defaults.

Jesus, the politics and bureaucracy of open-source software are sometimes very bewildering to me. Stuff like this shouldn't be decided by committees. This should be designed and tested in a user study by a UX excerpt. That's like asking your local politicians about their opinion on nuclear reactors...

[onicsis]

Better, if Auto-Suspend will be a standardized as a power management feature for all desktop environment, but conditioned by various events, and should not be happening if some task running in background torrents, downloads, long compilations or a movie playing in full screen and many others. An during OS install or at first login user should be questioned anyway to know that setting exist. Users can find Auto-Suspend a useful feature if is implemented sufficiently flexible for here/his daily current needs. Alongside coupled with messages via DBus (before Auto-Suspend happens) or something to trigger some Auto-Save operations if needed just in case for a power outage.

[Awesomeness]

Ahh, GNOME 3, the DE where the developers know best, and user-facing configuration options are the enemy (stupid users should just accept that devs know what's best for them)! /s

There's always the option to not use Gnome if its approach to usability doesn't suit you.

[dungeon]

The debate is around the defaults.

Laws says up to 20 minutes in EU and up to 30 minutes in US... so just set it to 25 minutes and let them debate it

And write errata "on average timing is legal, but this power feature could be considered as hot cake or bumpy road, so either not so perfect or just buggy; that depends if user is brave like Nikola Tesla or if user is stuipid like a child from cloned giraffe"