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

While Ubuntu developers have decided to no longer enable auto-suspend by default as set with the new GNOME 3.28 desktop when running on AC power, Fedora developers are still debating the issue.

While there is certainly overlap between Fedora/RedHat developers and those working on GNOME, including those that sanctioned this upstream change during the GNOME 3.28 cycle, the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCo) has now been summoned to voice their opinion on the matter as well as the Fedora Workstation special interest group.

A FESCo ticket was opened yesterday and they will debate the issue at tomorrow's meeting, but some have suggested FESCo shouldn't do that until the Workstation SIG has met over the matter. Some are arguing this is only a Fedora Workstation issue while others argue that with GNOME 3.28 being install-able on Fedora Server 28 is also certainly problematic. The Workstation ticket can be viewed here.

Similar to when I voiced my opinions over it last month on an Ubuntu 18.04 development snapshot, there are others that also feel this is poor default behavior to enable by default when there is still plenty of laptop and desktop hardware out there that doesn't work reliably with suspend-and-resume.

There's also the problem of some applications not inhibiting the suspend functionality problem, suspending sometimes being induced immediately after an application is done inhibiting the process for an extended period of time, and other bugs or usability shortcomings.

The original change to gnome-settings-daemon for GNOME 3.28 auto suspending by default cites an EU Commission Regulation that for computers that are not serving their main function, the hardware should offer a power management function to switch into a standby mode.

We will see if FESCo weighs in tomorrow on the auto-suspend debate ahead of the Fedora Workstation 28 release due out at the beginning of May that is using GNOME 3.28 by default.