11:31 p.m.
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
11:33 p.m.
Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Since GTK+ already supports it, can we just make the timeout be 30s?
behdad
8:07 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 00:33 -0500, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
Matthew Garrett wrote:
> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
> region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
> default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Since GTK+ already supports it, can we just make the timeout be 30s?
behdad
Something along these lines would be awesome. It would work for
whenever you're working, and would disappear when you're not actively
using the computer. Yes, that's simplistic, but it covers a lot of
complaints. The specific number, I don't know.
How about the Gnome developers? What do you guys think? (I know Behdad
is one, but I don't know the rest). If this becomes a Gnome default,
the power savings, hopefully, will filter to more systems than just
Fedora. If it was just Ubuntu, this could almost double (or more than
double?) the savings from just Fedora.
________________________________________________________________________
Basil Mohamed Gohar
abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org
www.basilgohar.com
11:10 a.m.
On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 10:07:37PM +0800, Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
Something along these lines would be awesome. It would work for
whenever you're working, and would disappear when you're not actively
using the computer. Yes, that's simplistic, but it covers a lot of
complaints. The specific number, I don't know.
The reason I'm not keen on this idea is that it means the cursor blinks
when you already know where it is and doesn't blink when you don't,
which would appear to defeat the purpose.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
11:52 a.m.
On Thu, 2009-02-05 at 17:10 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 10:07:37PM +0800, Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
> Something along these lines would be awesome. It would work for
> whenever you're working, and would disappear when you're not actively
> using the computer. Yes, that's simplistic, but it covers a lot of
> complaints. The specific number, I don't know.
The reason I'm not keen on this idea is that it means the cursor blinks
when you already know where it is and doesn't blink when you don't,
which would appear to defeat the purpose.
That's a good point. I didn't think of that. So, I change my vote
(like it matters) to no more blinking, period.
________________________________________________________________________
Basil Mohamed Gohar
abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org
www.basilgohar.com
12:48 p.m.
Le vendredi 06 février 2009 à 01:52 +0800, Basil Mohamed Gohar a écrit :
On Thu, 2009-02-05 at 17:10 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 05, 2009 at 10:07:37PM +0800, Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
>
> > Something along these lines would be awesome. It would work for
> > whenever you're working, and would disappear when you're not actively
> > using the computer. Yes, that's simplistic, but it covers a lot of
> > complaints. The specific number, I don't know.
>
> The reason I'm not keen on this idea is that it means the cursor blinks
> when you already know where it is and doesn't blink when you don't,
> which would appear to defeat the purpose.
>
That's a good point. I didn't think of that. So, I change my vote
(like it matters) to no more blinking, period.
Not really true, a blinking cursor in a just-created input field clearly
conveys to the user the app is waiting for input *now*
--
Nicolas Mailhot
12:09 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
I set this myself everywhere I can, so I would really like to see this
the default.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
12:21 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
A slightly less drastical measure would be to set the
gtk-cursor-blink-timeout setting to some reasonable value of seconds:
/**
* GtkSettings:gtk-cursor-blink-timeout:
*
* Time after which the cursor stops blinking, in seconds.
* The timer is reset after each user interaction.
*
* Setting this to zero has the same effect as setting
* #GtkSettings:gtk-cursor-blink to %FALSE.
*
* Since: 2.12
*/
1:28 a.m.
Hi.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:21:47 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
/**
* GtkSettings:gtk-cursor-blink-timeout:
*
* Time after which the cursor stops blinking, in seconds.
* The timer is reset after each user interaction.
So the cursor blinks at first, but then stops? I think that may confuse
people ("My cursor is broken, it stopped blinking.")
1:44 a.m.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009, Ralf Ertzinger wrote:
Hi.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:21:47 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> /**
> * GtkSettings:gtk-cursor-blink-timeout:
> *
> * Time after which the cursor stops blinking, in seconds.
> * The timer is reset after each user interaction.
So the cursor blinks at first, but then stops? I think that may confuse
people
Sounds a bit weird to me.
("My cursor is broken, it stopped blinking.")
LOL :)
As for my "vote", yes kill the annoying blinker by default, please.
Upgrading to F10 caused quite some rude language down here due to the
cursor blink setting moving to System -> Preferences -> Hardware ->
Keyboard. I wouldn't mind if I dont to need to ever again hunt and guess
the new "intuitive" place when the setting gets moved the next time.
- Panu -
10 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 08:28 +0100, Ralf Ertzinger wrote:
Hi.
On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 01:21:47 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> /**
> * GtkSettings:gtk-cursor-blink-timeout:
> *
> * Time after which the cursor stops blinking, in seconds.
> * The timer is reset after each user interaction.
So the cursor blinks at first, but then stops? I think that may confuse
people ("My cursor is broken, it stopped blinking.")
No, it works very well in practice. The blinking starts again the moment
you do something, like move focus.
Have you ever noticed that we hide the mouse pointer when you are typing
in an entry ? It comes back the moment you move the mouse. I have not
heard a single "My mouse is broken" complaint about that.
10:22 a.m.
Matthias Clasen wrote:
Have you ever noticed that we hide the mouse pointer when you are
typing
in an entry ? It comes back the moment you move the mouse. I have not
heard a single "My mouse is broken" complaint about that.
I noticed this before you mentioned it. It's the kind of bug
which does not admit a crisp bug report unless you "solve" it
(manage to determine the reason for the behavior) before going
to Bugzilla. This de-motivates complaints.
--
6:27 a.m.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:21:47AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
> region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
> default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
>
A slightly less drastical measure would be to set the
gtk-cursor-blink-timeout setting to some reasonable value of seconds:
That works for Gnome, but what about vttys and other desktop environments?
I'm not saying to not use the gtk thing, I'm just wondering if there is a
toggle that would catch it globally somewhere.
josh
6:53 a.m.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 1:27 PM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:21:47AM -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
>> frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
>> region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
>> default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
>>
>
>A slightly less drastical measure would be to set the
>gtk-cursor-blink-timeout setting to some reasonable value of seconds:
That works for Gnome, but what about vttys and other desktop environments?
I'm not saying to not use the gtk thing, I'm just wondering if there is a
toggle that would catch it globally somewhere.
Yes, this is an issue. I use KDE as a desktop but regularly run
several GTK apps including Firefox, Eclipse, and OpenOffice. A month
or so ago I tried -- and failed -- to find a way to turn off the
blinking cursor in these apps (due to issues with evil proprietary
graphics drivers) without manually running gnome-settings
MEF
--
Mary Ellen Foster -- http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mef/
Informatik 6: Robotics and Embedded Systems, Technische Universität München
and ICCS, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
4 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently.
How about the fading glow flashy thing the gnome panel window switcher
does when a window wants attention? That's even worse.
On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Please do.
4:04 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 04:00 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> frequently.
How about the fading glow flashy thing the gnome panel window switcher
does when a window wants attention? That's even worse.
Not really, it blinks for a set amount of time, then doesn't change.
It's a matter of a couple of seconds.
9:42 a.m.
On Friday, 30 January 2009 at 06:31, Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Yes. I very much like my blinking cursor and I'd be very annoyed if
it suddenly went away. It's one of those little things that you normally
don't notice.
I'd like to see some more specific data from that test of yours (and
your methodology).
Regards,
R.
--
Fedora http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Rathann
RPMFusion http://rpmfusion.org | MPlayer http://mplayerhq.hu
"Faith manages."
-- Delenn to Lennier in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations"
11:28 a.m.
Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski (dominik(a)greysector.net) said:
> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
> region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
> default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Yes. I very much like my blinking cursor and I'd be very annoyed if
it suddenly went away. It's one of those little things that you normally
don't notice.
Note - this is about changing the default. Whatever option exists now
to turn it off will still be there for reenabling it.
Bill
7:25 p.m.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 04:42:51PM +0100, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
I'd like to see some more specific data from that test of yours
(and
your methodology).
Plug system[1] into Watts Up Pro. Allow values to stabalise at 97W.
Disable cursor blinking. Note that values now stabalise at 95W. Flick
between the two and observe that results are consistent.
[1] Quad core AMD, 8GB of RAM, Radeon X1900 graphics card running the
F10 kernel with my patches to reclock the video harwdare. I'll be
pushing these into rawhide once I've had a chance to rebase them.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
7:17 a.m.
On Saturday, 31 January 2009 at 02:25, Matthew Garrett wrote:
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 04:42:51PM +0100, Dominik 'Rathann'
Mierzejewski wrote:
> I'd like to see some more specific data from that test of yours (and
> your methodology).
Plug system[1] into Watts Up Pro. Allow values to stabalise at 97W.
Disable cursor blinking. Note that values now stabalise at 95W. Flick
between the two and observe that results are consistent.
[1] Quad core AMD, 8GB of RAM, Radeon X1900 graphics card running the
F10 kernel with my patches to reclock the video harwdare. I'll be
pushing these into rawhide once I've had a chance to rebase them.
Which Xorg video driver? radeon? radeonhd?
Regards,
R.
--
Fedora http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Rathann
RPMFusion http://rpmfusion.org | MPlayer http://mplayerhq.hu
"Faith manages."
-- Delenn to Lennier in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations"
11:32 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 05:31 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Fine for me. As long as people have a way to turn it back on, it should
be good for most people. It's a horrendous amount of power to save.
Richard.
6:03 p.m.
Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Yes. I love blinking cursor. And it is a history now.
If there settings to enable it - why you can't disable it if you want?
6:29 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 03:03 +0300, Pavel Alexeev (aka Pahan-Hubbitus)
wrote:
Matthew Garrett wrote:
> The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
> region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
> default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
>
Yes. I love blinking cursor. And it is a history now.
If there settings to enable it - why you can't disable it if you want?
the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we disable
it then we save power on each machine.
More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
+1 to disabling it.
-sv
7:18 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 19:29 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we
disable it then we save power on each machine.
I can speak from personal experience with customers that people care
about a blinking cursor. They are used to it, and when it goes away
they are upset.
More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
The amount of energy used is minimal. This is not the way to go
about it. We should have a "Power Manager" that should have a
selector between:
Min power Default Max performance
setting, and the "Min power" stuff should disable the cursor
for the people that care for the 1W.
Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
7:26 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:18 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 19:29 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we
> disable it then we save power on each machine.
I can speak from personal experience with customers that people care
about a blinking cursor. They are used to it, and when it goes away
they are upset.
> More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
The amount of energy used is minimal. This is not the way to go
about it. We should have a "Power Manager" that should have a
selector between:
Min power Default Max performance
setting, and the "Min power" stuff should disable the cursor
for the people that care for the 1W.
Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
you mean in the same way you're forcing the use of more power on me?
-sv
7:43 p.m.
On Monday 02 February 2009 05:26:40 pm seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:18 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 19:29 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> > the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we
> > disable it then we save power on each machine.
>
> I can speak from personal experience with customers that people care
> about a blinking cursor. They are used to it, and when it goes away
> they are upset.
>
> > More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
>
> The amount of energy used is minimal. This is not the way to go
> about it. We should have a "Power Manager" that should have a
> selector between:
> Min power Default Max performance
>
> setting, and the "Min power" stuff should disable the cursor
> for the people that care for the 1W.
>
> Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
you mean in the same way you're forcing the use of more power on me?
-sv
No, it's a change from the long-time traditional behaviour -- the power
consumption due to the cursor blinking *by default* isn't more than it used to
be. The default can be changed for those obsessed with power saving.
--
Conrad Meyer <konrad(a)tylerc.org>
7:47 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 17:43 -0800, Conrad Meyer wrote:
No, it's a change from the long-time traditional behaviour -- the
power
consumption due to the cursor blinking *by default* isn't more than it used to
be. The default can be changed for those obsessed with power saving.
It's not more than it used to be - it's the same and we can reduce power
use by disabling it. Pretty easy.
Also - I think I'm comfortable saying that the Fedora Project is
interested in power saving.
I'd be happy to ask the board about that as a specific interest and goal
of the fedora project.
-sv
4:15 a.m.
Also - I think I'm comfortable saying that the Fedora Project is
interested in power saving.
I'd be happy to ask the board about that as a specific interest and goal
of the fedora project.
Rodrigo Padula initiated this:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zero_Carbon
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-January/msg000...
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-January/msg001...
When he announced he was willing to launch this initiative, everyone
was thrilled. The Board didn't endorse officially the project, but
they didn't say Rodrigo shouldn't use the Fedora brand on this.
In France, we have an adage that basically says "the one who doesn't
say anything agrees". ;)
----------
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
French Fedora Ambassador
----------
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin
8:21 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 11:15:13AM +0100, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:
> Also - I think I'm comfortable saying that the Fedora
Project is
> interested in power saving.
>
> I'd be happy to ask the board about that as a specific interest and goal
> of the fedora project.
Rodrigo Padula initiated this:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zero_Carbon
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-January/msg000...
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-January/msg001...
When he announced he was willing to launch this initiative, everyone
was thrilled. The Board didn't endorse officially the project, but
they didn't say Rodrigo shouldn't use the Fedora brand on this.
In France, we have an adage that basically says "the one who doesn't
say anything agrees". ;)
There shouldn't be any problem branding an initiative that operates
inside the Fedora Project and that otherwise doesn't conflict with our
objectives. The Fedora trademarks are meant to be used inside the
Fedora Project that way, and outside the Project in accordance with
the guidelines:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Trademark_guidelines
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
8:23 a.m.
On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 08:47:18PM -0500, seth vidal wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 17:43 -0800, Conrad Meyer wrote:
> No, it's a change from the long-time traditional behaviour -- the power
> consumption due to the cursor blinking *by default* isn't more than it used to
> be. The default can be changed for those obsessed with power saving.
It's not more than it used to be - it's the same and we can reduce power
use by disabling it. Pretty easy.
Also - I think I'm comfortable saying that the Fedora Project is
interested in power saving.
I'd be happy to ask the board about that as a specific interest and goal
of the fedora project.
We should be interested in saving power, but shouldn't use that as a
sole reason to disable Fedora interest groups' activities. For
instance, it probably saves significant power for us to never issue
another Fedora Live CD that uses a runlevel other than 3, but that's
an unreasonable target.
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
11:14 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 09:23:27AM -0500, Paul W. Frields wrote:
We should be interested in saving power, but shouldn't use that
as a
sole reason to disable Fedora interest groups' activities. For
instance, it probably saves significant power for us to never issue
another Fedora Live CD that uses a runlevel other than 3, but that's
an unreasonable target.
Not really. Until you start X, there's nothing to turn on the power
saving functionality in your graphics hardware.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
7:46 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:26 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
>
you mean in the same way you're forcing the use of more power on me?
Not at all. I'm not forcing you do to anything, I'm all for
having an option and a decent UI to change this IF YOU WANT.
But changing the default does indeed forces stuff on users
as regular folks are not sophisticated enough to figure out
WTF their computer stopped working as expected.
Changing the status-quo on basic things like this is just
not cool. The burden of proof is on the people doing the
change, and 1W doesn't cut it.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
7:49 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:46 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:26 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> > Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
> >
>
> you mean in the same way you're forcing the use of more power on me?
Not at all. I'm not forcing you do to anything, I'm all for
having an option and a decent UI to change this IF YOU WANT.
But changing the default does indeed forces stuff on users
as regular folks are not sophisticated enough to figure out
WTF their computer stopped working as expected.
Changing the status-quo on basic things like this is just
not cool. The burden of proof is on the people doing the
change, and 1W doesn't cut it.
1w * 8-10million users does cut it, imo.
-sv
8:53 p.m.
On 2009/02/02 20:49 (GMT-0500) seth vidal composed:
1w * 8-10million users does cut it, imo.
If you really wanted to save serious power, you'd stop inducing or forcing
people with less power hungry old systems (i586 ring a bell?) to replace them
with considerably hungrier newer systems. New systems make much better room
heaters than old systems, because they use a lot more power, far more than
one extra watt. Support for old systems == really substantial conservation.
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
10:52 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 21:53 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
If you really wanted to save serious power, you'd stop inducing or forcing
people with less power hungry old systems (i586 ring a bell?) to replace them
with considerably hungrier newer systems. New systems make much better room
heaters than old systems, because they use a lot more power, far more than
one extra watt. Support for old systems == really substantial conservation.
Isn't it odd then, that each new system I buy happens to use lower power
over time than previous systems?
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
10:58 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:52 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 21:53 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
>
> If you really wanted to save serious power, you'd stop inducing or forcing
> people with less power hungry old systems (i586 ring a bell?) to replace them
> with considerably hungrier newer systems. New systems make much better room
> heaters than old systems, because they use a lot more power, far more than
> one extra watt. Support for old systems == really substantial conservation.
Isn't it odd then, that each new system I buy happens to use lower power
over time than previous systems?
Including manufacturing cost, that's not entirely true.
-sv
10:57 a.m.
seth vidal (skvidal(a)fedoraproject.org) said:
> > If you really wanted to save serious power, you'd stop
inducing or forcing
> > people with less power hungry old systems (i586 ring a bell?) to replace them
> > with considerably hungrier newer systems. New systems make much better room
> > heaters than old systems, because they use a lot more power, far more than
> > one extra watt. Support for old systems == really substantial conservation.
>
> Isn't it odd then, that each new system I buy happens to use lower power
> over time than previous systems?
Including manufacturing cost, that's not entirely true.
No, but that's not what the poster suggested. Heck, I went from
a 5-year old Athlon64 server to an Atom based one, and cut
the power usage by a factor of over 5.
Bill
11:53 a.m.
On 2009/02/02 20:52 (GMT-0800) Jesse Keating composed:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 21:53 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
> If you really wanted to save serious power, you'd stop
inducing or forcing
> people with less power hungry old systems (i586 ring a bell?) to replace them
> with considerably hungrier newer systems. New systems make much better room
> heaters than old systems, because they use a lot more power, far more than
> one extra watt. Support for old systems == really substantial conservation.
Isn't it odd then, that each new system I buy happens to use
lower power
over time than previous systems?
How did you measure? Did you measure?
My measurements using Seasonic PowerAngel SSM-1508RA:
Description Speed Mfg Model Minutes KWH Rate
PC w/ 2 HD 450 Mac G3 221 0.18 1.1729
PC, PIII, 133FSB, 2 IDE HD 1133 Dell GX150 168 0.15 1.2857
PC, K6-III 66FSB, 2 SCSI HD, 1 IDE 400 AOpen AX5T-3 1544 1.47 1.3710
PC, K6-III+ 100FSB, 3 SCSI HD 550 Asus P5S-B 553 0.73 1.9009
PC, P4-478 400FSB, 1 HD, 80+ PS 3000 Abit AI7 1424 1.94 1.9618
PC, Celeron478 400FSB, 1 HD 2400 Abit AI7 600 0.87 2.0880
PC, Socket A 333FSB, 1 HD, std PS 2000 Biostar M7NCD 120 0.20 2.4000
PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 2800 PCChips T18 7200 12.06 2.4120
PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD 2800 PCChips T18 691 1.30 2.7091
PC, P4-775 800FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 3400 Foxconn F9657AB 617 1.42 3.3141
80+ is described at http://www.80plus.org/
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
11:59 a.m.
My measurements using Seasonic PowerAngel SSM-1508RA:
Description Speed Mfg Model Minutes KWH Rate
PC w/ 2 HD 450 Mac G3 221 0.18 1.1729
PC, PIII, 133FSB, 2 IDE HD 1133 Dell GX150 168 0.15 1.2857
PC, K6-III 66FSB, 2 SCSI HD, 1 IDE 400 AOpen AX5T-3 1544 1.47 1.3710
PC, K6-III+ 100FSB, 3 SCSI HD 550 Asus P5S-B 553 0.73 1.9009
PC, P4-478 400FSB, 1 HD, 80+ PS 3000 Abit AI7 1424 1.94 1.9618
PC, Celeron478 400FSB, 1 HD 2400 Abit AI7 600 0.87 2.0880
PC, Socket A 333FSB, 1 HD, std PS 2000 Biostar M7NCD 120 0.20 2.4000
PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 2800 PCChips T18 7200 12.06 2.4120
PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD 2800 PCChips T18 691 1.30 2.7091
PC, P4-775 800FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 3400 Foxconn F9657AB 617 1.42 3.3141
80+ is described at http://www.80plus.org/
I suppose you used the exact same system on each of them ? What was it ?
That's an interesting measurement in any case :)
----------
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
French Fedora Ambassador
----------
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin
12:53 a.m.
On 2009/02/03 18:59 (GMT+0100) Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) composed:
I previously wrote:
> My measurements using Seasonic PowerAngel SSM-1508RA:
> Description Speed Mfg Model Minutes KWH Rate
> PC w/ 2 HD 450 Mac G3 221 0.18 1.1729
> PC, PIII, 133FSB, 2 IDE HD 1133 Dell GX150 168 0.15 1.2857
> PC, K6-III 66FSB, 2 SCSI HD, 1 IDE 400 AOpen AX5T-3 1544 1.47 1.3710
> PC, K6-III+ 100FSB, 3 SCSI HD 550 Asus P5S-B 553 0.73 1.9009
> PC, P4-478 400FSB, 1 HD, 80+ PS 3000 Abit AI7 1424 1.94 1.9618
> PC, Celeron478 400FSB, 1 HD 2400 Abit AI7 600 0.87 2.0880
> PC, Socket A 333FSB, 1 HD, std PS 2000 Biostar M7NCD 120 0.20 2.4000
> PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 2800 PCChips T18 7200 12.06 2.4120
> PC, P4-775 533FSB, 1+1 HD 2800 PCChips T18 691 1.30 2.7091
> PC, P4-775 800FSB, 1+1 HD, 80+ PS 3400 Foxconn F9657AB 617 1.42 3.3141
> 80+ is described at http://www.80plus.org/
I suppose you used the exact same system on each of them ? What was
it ?
System, like turning them on and just going away? With half that was about it, doing no
more than
going to a DOS or shell prompt or a boot loader menu. No power saving features were
enabled beyond
a bash or Norton commander screen blanker. Some were running a GUI, but not with anything
substantial happening, no Gimping, OO, kernel compilations, or DVDs or music downloaded,
burned or
played.
All those systems except the now dead T18 remain (multi) bootable. I'm writing this
from the (space
heater) Foxconn.
I didn't tabulate installed memory, so what you see for the AI7 comparison needs an
estimated
adjustment for the Celeron config having half the RAM of the Prescott config. The Dell I
originally
did just to a DOS prompt, but the original result didn't meet my expectation, and I
rebooted it
into WinXP and loaded Firefox to a passive page, then just left it, only to find a
statistically
insignificant difference. None have or need active video cooling.
That's an interesting measurement in any case :)
I figured some would reach such a conclusion. My main points were fairly recent stuff
gobbles power
compared to pretty old yet still servicable stuff, and 80+ genuinely saves.
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
7:54 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:46 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:26 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> > Don't force this sort of stuff on people like that.
> >
>
> you mean in the same way you're forcing the use of more power on me?
Not at all. I'm not forcing you do to anything, I'm all for
having an option and a decent UI to change this IF YOU WANT.
But changing the default does indeed forces stuff on users
as regular folks are not sophisticated enough to figure out
WTF their computer stopped working as expected.
Changing the status-quo on basic things like this is just
not cool. The burden of proof is on the people doing the
change, and 1W doesn't cut it.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
Actually the burden of proof isn't on anybody. The upstream maintainer
and / or the downstream maintainer can choose to adjust the default
setting. Period. No amount of noisy blabber on a mailing list will
remove that right.
Defaults change. If not, we'd all still be storing everything in /etc/.
The fact that we can make this change and have real world benefit makes
it all the nicer.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
8:20 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 08:18:59PM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
Min power Default Max performance
So a blinking cursor indicates higher performance than a non-blinking
one? You can't represent power management on a one dimensional scale.
That's poor UI.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
8:34 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 02:20 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
> Min power Default Max performance
So a blinking cursor indicates higher performance than a non-blinking
one? You can't represent power management on a one dimensional scale.
That's poor UI.
Whatever. This can be worked around.
Somehow on this forum saying that "90%+ of users use Windows" is a
"made up statistic" whereas saying that turning off blinking on a cursor
is going to save millions of trees is self evident. Yay!
Changing defaults like this is just a way to shoot ourselves in the
foot. Real customers/users are very finicky about the tiniest of
details. Dealing with them directly is a great learning experience.
Besides, we seem to enjoy pain: nobody will appreciate a non-blinking
cursor, yet we know _some_ will have a big problem with it. The only
people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
8:41 p.m.
Dimi Paun wrote:
Besides, we seem to enjoy pain: nobody will appreciate a
non-blinking
cursor, yet we know _some_ will have a big problem with it.
This thread has shown that a lot of people have a big problem with a
blinking cursor. It is distracting and annoying to me. I always disable
it almost immediately after a fresh installation.
Rahul
9:05 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 09:34:45PM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
Besides, we seem to enjoy pain: nobody will appreciate a
non-blinking
cursor, yet we know _some_ will have a big problem with it. The only
people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
I've spoken to several customers who find even single watt savings
interesting. Claiming that they're in the minority is an unerified
statistic - claiming that this change saves power is not.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
10:17 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 03:05:20AM +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 09:34:45PM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> Besides, we seem to enjoy pain: nobody will appreciate a non-blinking
> cursor, yet we know _some_ will have a big problem with it. The only
> people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
> trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
I've spoken to several customers who find even single watt savings
interesting. Claiming that they're in the minority is an unerified
statistic - claiming that this change saves power is not.
And your implied claim that it's a majority is nothing more than
anecdotal as well. In fact, I would even say the verification of your
wattage-savings is a bit of a guess based on the description I've seen
of your testing.
That being said, I'm all for power savings, so I think it's a great idea
and that it should be done. I'm sure I'll type 'reset' a few times on
the console before I realize I've picked up the change and my cursor
isn't supposed to blink, but it won't be the end of the world.
-andy
10:24 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 02, 2009 at 11:17:29PM -0500, Andy Gospodarek wrote:
And your implied claim that it's a majority is nothing more than
anecdotal as well. In fact, I would even say the verification of your
wattage-savings is a bit of a guess based on the description I've seen
of your testing.
Oh, I'm certainly not going to claim that a majority of our users care
about power consumption. I've got absolutely no idea what the relative
weightings are, just anecdotes in both direction. That said, if you've
got any better ways to measure the power difference, I'd be happy to
provide more figures. The 2W one pretty closely matches the expected
figure (40ms of smoothing plus a frame for the change to take effect
times two transitions per second, gives a figure of a little more than
10% of the time in an upclocked state, and 18W or so between the
upclocked and downclocked figures on the hardware in question) so I'm
fairly happy with the result.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
10:25 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Andy Gospodarek <gospo(a)redhat.com> wrote:
And your implied claim that it's a majority is nothing more than
anecdotal as well. In fact, I would even say the verification of your
wattage-savings is a bit of a guess based on the description I've seen
of your testing.
Are you proposing a better methodology? His power saving calculation
methodology is the only thing in this thread which can be tested and
verified by everyone. I haven't seen anyone other than him go through
the trouble of doing their own power consumption testings and coming
back with different numbers. In the absence of a better methodology,
there isn't a basis to discount his numbers. Would it make you feel
any better if I did the exact same test with a different brand of
meter on my desktop system?
-jef
4:04 a.m.
The only
people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
Actually, I would say that basically everyone benefits from any power
savings, no matter how small they are (you know, reducing our energy
consumption, saving the planet, all of that...)
FWIW, I never even noticed my cursor was blinking, so I would love to
not notice it stopped blinking if it reduces power consumption.
----------
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
French Fedora Ambassador
----------
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin
9:15 a.m.
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:
> The only
> people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
> trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
Actually, I would say that basically everyone benefits from any power
savings, no matter how small they are (you know, reducing our energy
consumption, saving the planet, all of that...)
It's even simpler than that: efficiency is a fundamental measure in all
engineering. More efficiency is always better, regardless of planets,
energy crises, and so on. I'm surprised we're having this argument at
all, it's such a no-brainer.
Andrew.
9:50 a.m.
Andrew Haley píše v Út 03. 02. 2009 v 15:15 +0000:
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:
>> The only
>> people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
>> trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
>
> Actually, I would say that basically everyone benefits from any power
> savings, no matter how small they are (you know, reducing our energy
> consumption, saving the planet, all of that...)
It's even simpler than that: efficiency is a fundamental measure in all
engineering. More efficiency is always better, regardless of planets,
energy crises, and so on.
Meeting requirements is more important than efficiency.
Given a task,
engineers focus on performing it efficiently, but they are not always at
liberty to work on a different task just because it can be performed
more efficiently.
(Forced labor >16 hours a day is an efficient way use a fixed amount of
people to perform some tasks, but we are not building labor camps just
because it is efficient.)
In this case, "blinking cursor" is a requirement of some users, not an
internal detail of the implementation that can be changed at will if it
improves efficiency.
Mirek
9:55 a.m.
Miloslav Trmač wrote:
In this case, "blinking cursor" is a requirement of some
users, not an
internal detail of the implementation that can be changed at will if it
improves efficiency.
A few, maybe, but in general this is quite incredible. The idea that
we should be wasting a fractional percentage of the total power budget
on something so pointless is utterly absurd.
Andrew.
10:24 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 03:55:23PM +0000, Andrew Haley wrote:
Miloslav Trmač wrote:
> In this case, "blinking cursor" is a requirement of some users, not an
> internal detail of the implementation that can be changed at will if it
> improves efficiency.
A few, maybe, but in general this is quite incredible. The idea that
we should be wasting a fractional percentage of the total power budget
on something so pointless is utterly absurd.
Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad T400
could go to 10,3W when idle, we are talking about serious percentage
of power saved. This means longer on-battery work and longer battery
lifetime (and not some fscking hipothetical trees saved).
--
Tomasz Torcz "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
xmpp: zdzichubg(a)chrome.pl wagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray
2:07 p.m.
Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad
T400
could go to 10,3W when idle
But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped, and the loss is users
wondering where the damn cursor is (there are good reasons it was made
to blink in the first place)
--
Nicolas Mailhot
2:09 p.m.
Nicolas Mailhot (nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net) said:
But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with
no
cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped, and the loss is users
wondering where the damn cursor is (there are good reasons it was made
to blink in the first place)
I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
Bill
2:53 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
longest established conventions on a whim?!?
Where are the scientific usability studies that are
required here whenever other changes are proposed?
On a busy X session (I typically have 30-40+ windows open)
not having a blinking cursor is crazy.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
3:39 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
longest established conventions on a whim?!?
Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
-sv
3:42 p.m.
seth vidal wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
And I'm not sure it's even true. I have never seen an Xterm flash,
but my gnome-terminals do.
Andrew.
4:13 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 21:42 +0000, Andrew Haley wrote:
seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>
> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
And I'm not sure it's even true. I have never seen an Xterm flash,
but my gnome-terminals do.
False tradition is also not an argument in fedora. :)
-sv
4:22 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 16:39 -0500, seth vidal wrote:
> There's a reason it's been like this in like ...
forever.
> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
Neither seems to be reason.
Blindingly ignoring tradition is patently absurd.
We might as well change the slogan to:
Fedora: stupid and proud of it!
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
4:33 p.m.
> > There's a reason it's been like this in like ...
forever.
> > Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
> > longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>
> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
Neither seems to be reason.
TBH until recently I thought this problem had gone away. Shortly after
powertop came out the blinking cursor issue was identified as an issue
and I saw patches flying around to fix the problems. It wasn't until I
noticed OLPC was patching some part of the the gnome stack to fix the
issue that I realised that it was still an issue. Surely it can be
made some sort of "Cursor Blink" config option that is disabled by
default but allow the people that want blinking to enable it
relatively simply.
Peter
4:42 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 11:33:12PM +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
>> > There's a reason it's been like this in like
... forever.
>> > Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>> > longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>>
>> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
>
> Neither seems to be reason.
TBH until recently I thought this problem had gone away. Shortly after
powertop came out the blinking cursor issue was identified as an issue
and I saw patches flying around to fix the problems. It wasn't until I
noticed OLPC was patching some part of the the gnome stack to fix the
issue that I realised that it was still an issue. Surely it can be
made some sort of "Cursor Blink" config option that is disabled by
default but allow the people that want blinking to enable it
relatively simply.
There already is -- System > Prefs > Hardware > Keyboard
--
Paul W. Frields http://paul.frields.org/
gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233 5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
http://redhat.com/ - - - - http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
5:10 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 11:33:12PM +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
TBH until recently I thought this problem had gone away. Shortly
after
powertop came out the blinking cursor issue was identified as an issue
and I saw patches flying around to fix the problems. It wasn't until I
noticed OLPC was patching some part of the the gnome stack to fix the
issue that I realised that it was still an issue. Surely it can be
made some sort of "Cursor Blink" config option that is disabled by
default but allow the people that want blinking to enable it
relatively simply.
It is - System/Preferences/Hardware(?)/Keyboard(!)/General/ . FWIW:
* Tue Feb 3 2009 Matthew Garrett <mjg(a)redhat.com> - 2.24.1-9
- Default to a non-blinking cursor
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
3:40 a.m.
Matthew Garrett wrote:
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 11:33:12PM +0100, Peter Robinson wrote:
> TBH until recently I thought this problem had gone away. Shortly after
> powertop came out the blinking cursor issue was identified as an issue
> and I saw patches flying around to fix the problems. It wasn't until I
> noticed OLPC was patching some part of the the gnome stack to fix the
> issue that I realised that it was still an issue. Surely it can be
> made some sort of "Cursor Blink" config option that is disabled by
> default but allow the people that want blinking to enable it
> relatively simply.
It is - System/Preferences/Hardware(?)/Keyboard(!)/General/ . FWIW:
Hardware/Keyboard? Keyboard! No wonder I couldn't find it. :-(
Andrew.
7:38 a.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 23:10 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
It is - System/Preferences/Hardware(?)/Keyboard(!)/General/ . FWIW:
* Tue Feb 3 2009 Matthew Garrett <mjg(a)redhat.com> - 2.24.1-9
- Default to a non-blinking cursor
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
With this tip, I just tried it. This will affect both GTK windows as
well as gnome-terminal, it seems. I suggest people actually try it and
see how much it impacts you. What I am left with, after disabling the
blinking, is the cursor in the "blink-on" state, for what it's worth.
Can we at least try it? I will, and I'll probably forget that it used
to blink after a day or so (or even a few hours).
I'm rather ambivalent at the moment, but I believe if it's something
that can quantitatively reduce power consumption, even if only a little
bit, it's worth trying (i.e., just ourselves for now). I hope that's
not flame-worthy.
________________________________________________________________________
Basil Mohamed Gohar
abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org
www.basilgohar.com
4:37 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com> wrote:
We might as well change the slogan to:
Fedora: stupid and proud of it!
I would appreciate it if you tried to keep this discussion civil.
right now on my F10 system
xterm defaults to no blink
konsole defaults to no blink
aterm defaults to no blink
Eterm defaults to no blink
rxvt defaults to no blink
gnome-terminal defaults to blink
I do not think traditional terminal operation makes a strong argument
in the scope of this discussion in the light of the fact that other
terminal emulators with codebase lifetimes as long or longer than
gnome-terminal/libvte already default to no blink in F10.
If anything.. gnome-terminal is the odd man out and there is an
argument to be made to bring it into line with the common default
behaviour of other virtual terminals.
-jef"unless my defaults are screwed up of course"spaleta
5:03 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:37 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
I would appreciate it if you tried to keep this discussion civil.
It wasn't directed at anybody. All I was trying to say is that we
can't just claim we ignore tradition. Fedora after all is Unix:
"Those who ignore Unix are bound to reinvent it ... poorly"
If anything.. gnome-terminal is the odd man out and there is an
argument to be made to bring it into line with the common default
behaviour of other virtual terminals.
Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the blinking
cursor for all the other X apps. Do you propose to nuke it there
as well? If not, why do it in the terminals? If yes, i just can't
see how we're not going to upset a lot of users.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
5:07 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com> wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:37 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
> I would appreciate it if you tried to keep this discussion civil.
It wasn't directed at anybody. All I was trying to say is that we
can't just claim we ignore tradition. Fedora after all is Unix:
"Those who ignore Unix are bound to reinvent it ... poorly"
You don't have to direct it at anybody..for it to be uncivil. Every
emotive outburst is a step along a downward spiral as it drags the
overall tone for the discussion down.
Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the blinking
cursor for all the other X apps.
what other X apps have blinking cursors. did I miss a terminal
emulator of merit.?
All the other X based terminal emulators I just installed default to no blink.
-jef
5:13 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 14:07 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
what other X apps have blinking cursors. did I miss a terminal
emulator of merit.?
All the other X based terminal emulators I just installed default to
no blink.
I'm talking about any editor, not necessarily a terminal emulator.
Just open a editor, create an email, etc.
In any such window that expects input, the cursor blinks ONLY IF
the window has the focus. Otherwise it doesn't.
If the window has focus, you are doing something in there, so
the blinking works well to tell you where the insertion point is.
If you are just reading a PDF document as was suggested before,
there isn't any blinking cursor anywhere so what are we saving?
Why is it a good idea to treat terminals any different from any
other editor waiting for your input?
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
5:32 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com> wrote:
I'm talking about any editor, not necessarily a terminal
emulator.
Just open a editor, create an email, etc.
Ah...gnome-calculator's cursor
doesn't blink even when the line has focus.
Why is it a good idea to treat terminals any different from any
other editor waiting for your input?
That is an argument for consistency...not an argument for tradition.
I can most definitely support consistency. I'm not arguing that
terminals should be different than other apps. If its worth taking
out the blinking cursor in the terminal its worth doing it it
consistently..assuming it saves power to turn off the blink as seen in
other places.
I find the blinking cursor to be redundant in applications like
abiword or firefox. As soon as an entry gains focus..the cursor shows
up. The presence of the cursor is itself indication that input is
accepted in that entry area...the blinking is not the primary
indicator..the cursor is.
-jef
6:28 p.m.
On 2009/02/03 14:32 (GMT-0900) Jeff Spaleta composed:
I find the blinking cursor to be redundant in applications like
abiword or firefox. As soon as an entry gains focus..the cursor shows
up. The presence of the cursor is itself indication that input is
accepted in that entry area...the blinking is not the primary
indicator..the cursor is.
Don't say that to a Mozilla programmer. They call the cursor a caret, both in
public, and in source code. :-p
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
5:16 p.m.
Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 14:07 -0900, Jeff Spaleta a écrit :
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
wrote:
> Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the
blinking
> cursor for all the other X apps.
what other X apps have blinking cursors.
A 5s check finds evolution, openoffice.org, pidgin
That should cover a significant userbase
--
Nicolas Mailhot
5:30 p.m.
On 2009/02/04 00:16 (GMT) Nicolas Mailhot composed:
Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 14:07 -0900, Jeff Spaleta a écrit :
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Dimi Paun
<dimi(a)lattica.com> wrote:
> > Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the
blinking
> > cursor for all the other X apps.
> what other X apps have blinking cursors.
A 5s check finds evolution, openoffice.org, pidgin
That should cover a significant userbase
Most of the rest are probably covered by web browsers: Google boxes and
urlbars in the chrome, text areas and input boxes in the web pages.
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
5:39 p.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 00:16 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 14:07 -0900, Jeff Spaleta a écrit :
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com> wrote:
> > Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the blinking
> > cursor for all the other X apps.
>
> what other X apps have blinking cursors.
A 5s check finds ... openoffice.org, ...
vcl/unx/gtk/gdi/salnativewidgets-gtk.cxx
// get cursor blink time
GtkSettings *pSettings =
gtk_widget_get_settings( gWidgetData[m_nScreen].gEditBoxWidget );
gboolean blink = false;
g_object_get( pSettings, "gtk-cursor-blink", &blink, (char *)NULL );
if!( blink )
aStyleSet.SetCursorBlinkTime( STYLE_CURSOR_NOBLINKTIME );
else
...
If gtk doesn't blink the cursor then OOo shouldn't blink either, in
theory at least.
C.
5:48 p.m.
On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:07:57 -0900
Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
wrote:
...snip...
> Maybe. But I still don't see how you can eliminate the blinking
> cursor for all the other X apps.
what other X apps have blinking cursors. did I miss a terminal
emulator of merit.?
Yes. The Xfce "Terminal" package.
In Terminal, you would have to edit the terminalrc file directly to
enable blinking cursor. It's not a pref thats exposed to the users via
the preference menu.
All the other X based terminal emulators I just installed default to
no blink.
As does Terminal.
-jef
kevin
6:53 p.m.
>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Spaleta
<jspaleta(a)gmail.com> writes:
Jeff> what other X apps have blinking cursors.
Emacs blinks by default.
This page is handy for anybody who doesn't like blinking cursors:
http://www.jurta.org/en/prog/noblink
It points out a number of different applications. Basically, each
GUI toolkit has its own setting for this.
Tom
7:43 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:37 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:22 PM, Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
wrote:
>
> We might as well change the slogan to:
>
> Fedora: stupid and proud of it!
I would appreciate it if you tried to keep this discussion civil.
right now on my F10 system
xterm defaults to no blink
konsole defaults to no blink
aterm defaults to no blink
Eterm defaults to no blink
rxvt defaults to no blink
gnome-terminal defaults to blink
I do not think traditional terminal operation makes a strong argument
in the scope of this discussion in the light of the fact that other
terminal emulators with codebase lifetimes as long or longer than
gnome-terminal/libvte already default to no blink in F10.
If anything.. gnome-terminal is the odd man out and there is an
argument to be made to bring it into line with the common default
behaviour of other virtual terminals.
-jef"unless my defaults are screwed up of course"spaleta
Not really on topic, but food for thought...
I powered up my DEC VT420 and the cursor doesn't blink on it. I don't
know if that was the default setting, but I've not changed it...but
there is a setting for it. I can't say I ever noticed it not blinking.
Brian
12:31 a.m.
right now on my F10 system
xterm defaults to no blink
konsole defaults to no blink
aterm defaults to no blink
Eterm defaults to no blink
rxvt defaults to no blink
I think these were only turned off as part of the powertop craze of a
year or two ago.
gnome-terminal defaults to blink
I think this is actually a gtk option.
I do not think traditional terminal operation makes a strong
argument
in the scope of this discussion in the light of the fact that other
terminal emulators with codebase lifetimes as long or longer than
gnome-terminal/libvte already default to no blink in F10.
If anything.. gnome-terminal is the odd man out and there is an
argument to be made to bring it into line with the common default
behaviour of other virtual terminals.
traditionally I think they did blink, but apparently most of the users
of those don't care or know how to change the default.
Peter
5:17 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 06:31:57AM +0000, Peter Robinson wrote:
> right now on my F10 system
>
> xterm defaults to no blink
> konsole defaults to no blink
> aterm defaults to no blink
> Eterm defaults to no blink
> rxvt defaults to no blink
I think these were only turned off as part of the powertop craze of a
year or two ago.
XTerm's cursor doesn't blink on my FC5 box.
6:27 p.m.
seth vidal wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels
are shaped round and not rectangular.
8:06 p.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 01:27 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>
> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels
are shaped round and not rectangular.
Just as a nitpick, wheels are round for a technical reason, not because
of tradition.
1:51 a.m.
Brian Wheeler wrote:
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 01:27 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> seth vidal wrote:
>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
>>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
> Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels
> are shaped round and not rectangular.
Just as a nitpick, wheels are round for a technical reason, not because
of tradition.
A matter of perspective. Some will say cursors are blinking for
technical reasons.
E.g.
* When using real terminals (or remote logins or runlevel 3), they often
are the only indication of a system being alive or not.
* Certain applications apply multiple cursors. The active one often is
blinking to highlight it.
Conversely: Most kids, at some point in their lifes will proudly present
their parents the vehicle with triangular or rectangular wheels they
assembled from LEGO kits or similar.
Ralf
3:47 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203(a)freenet.de> wrote:
Brian Wheeler wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 01:27 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>
>> seth vidal wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>>>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
>>>>
>>>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>>>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>>>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>>>
>>> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
>>
>> Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels are
>> shaped round and not rectangular.
>
> Just as a nitpick, wheels are round for a technical reason, not because
> of tradition.
A matter of perspective. Some will say cursors are blinking for technical
reasons.
Hey, the guy's name is "Wheeler". If anyone ought to know why they're
round, it's him. ;-)
--
Mat Booth
www.matbooth.co.uk
7:50 a.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 09:47 +0000, Mat Booth wrote:
On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:51 AM, Ralf Corsepius
<rc040203(a)freenet.de> wrote:
> Brian Wheeler wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 01:27 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>>
>>> seth vidal wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find
than
>>>>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as
text?
>>>>>
>>>>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>>>>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>>>>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>>>>
>>>> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
>>>
>>> Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels are
>>> shaped round and not rectangular.
>>
>> Just as a nitpick, wheels are round for a technical reason, not because
>> of tradition.
>
> A matter of perspective. Some will say cursors are blinking for technical
> reasons.
>
Hey, the guy's name is "Wheeler". If anyone ought to know why they're
round, it's him. ;-)
That's the theory, at least :)
7:47 a.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 08:51 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Brian Wheeler wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 01:27 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> seth vidal wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:53 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>>>>> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
>>>>> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as
text?
>>>> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
>>>> Doesn't it strike you as strange to change one of the
>>>> longest established conventions on a whim?!?
>>> Tradition is not an argument in fedora.
>> Sometimes traditions have good reasons - There are reasons why wheels
>> are shaped round and not rectangular.
>
> Just as a nitpick, wheels are round for a technical reason, not because
> of tradition.
A matter of perspective. Some will say cursors are blinking for
technical reasons.
Sure, but that's not the same. A wheel is defined (at least by
wikipedia) as: a circular device that is capable of rotating on its
axis. Does the definition of cursor require that it blink?
E.g.
* When using real terminals (or remote logins or runlevel 3), they often
are the only indication of a system being alive or not.
As I posted elsewhere in this thread, my VT420 which is a real terminal
by any definition, doesn't blink the cursor. Whether or not that was
its default or not I can't say since I've had it for years and I got it
second hand.
* Certain applications apply multiple cursors. The active one often
is
blinking to highlight it.
Ok, fair enough. How does this apply to terminals?
Conversely: Most kids, at some point in their lifes will proudly
present
their parents the vehicle with triangular or rectangular wheels they
assembled from LEGO kits or similar.
Ok, do the rectangular "wheels" do what a wheel traditionally does as
well as a circular wheel? Nope, it doesn't...so there's a technical
reason why a wheel is circular: it works. Just because something is
called a wheel doesn't make it a wheel.
Honestly, I don't care either way, though I do like saving power on my
laptop.
Brian "My ancestors apparently were cart makers" Wheeler
10:49 a.m.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Brian Wheeler wrote:
Ok, do the rectangular "wheels" do what a wheel
traditionally does as
well as a circular wheel? Nope, it doesn't...so there's a technical
reason why a wheel is circular: it works. Just because something is
called a wheel doesn't make it a wheel.
You just need to find some
catenary-surfaced roads and square wheels are
better than old circular ones. Lots of shapes go well with other road
shapes. We use circular wheels because flat roads are easier to make and
maintain than such roads. A little better explanation than that "it works".
:)
- --Ben
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5:19 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 08:47:00AM -0500, Brian Wheeler wrote:
> * When using real terminals (or remote logins or runlevel 3),
they often
> are the only indication of a system being alive or not.
As I posted elsewhere in this thread, my VT420 which is a real terminal
by any definition, doesn't blink the cursor. Whether or not that was
its default or not I can't say since I've had it for years and I got it
second hand.
Heh. I have a few brand-new-still-in-box VT520's. Should I crack one
open to check the whether the cursor blinks by default?
3:43 a.m.
On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:53:48 -0500, Dimi wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
> a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
What's the reason?
I could understand some of the opposition, if the cursor still were an
underscore character or a narrow line, both which would be difficult to
spot in a text editor. gEdit for example. A blinking insertion point is
easier to spot in such a case. In typical line-based terminal emulators,
where you cannot move the insertion point as freely as in text editors,
the blinking cursor box is unnecessary. It's distracting even, in
particular in terminals which don't wait for input because they are busy
executing something.
On a busy X session (I typically have 30-40+ windows open)
not having a blinking cursor is crazy.
The problem with your arguments is that you call something "crazy" without
explaining *what* would be crazy about it. Only one out of your 30-40+
windows would be active/selected and highlighted with different window
border colours.
5:06 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 10:43 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:53:48 -0500, Dimi wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 15:09 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> > I fail to see how a solid cursor is that much harder to find than
> > a blinking one. Unless you're only entering solid boxes as text?
>
> There's a reason it's been like this in like ... forever.
What's the reason?
I could understand some of the opposition, if the cursor still were an
underscore character or a narrow line, both which would be difficult to
spot in a text editor. gEdit for example. A blinking insertion point is
easier to spot in such a case. In typical line-based terminal emulators,
where you cannot move the insertion point as freely as in text editors,
the blinking cursor box is unnecessary. It's distracting even, in
particular in terminals which don't wait for input because they are busy
executing something.
> On a busy X session (I typically have 30-40+ windows open)
> not having a blinking cursor is crazy.
The problem with your arguments is that you call something "crazy" without
explaining *what* would be crazy about it. Only one out of your 30-40+
windows would be active/selected and highlighted with different window
border colours.
I've been running without a blinking cursor now for almost 24 hours, and
I feel great. I recommend you all try it too. I don't even realize
that there was a change, and I have had no difficulty in identifying
where the cursor is.
I do not know how many trees I've saved yet. Being in Malaysia, there's
plenty to go around, but that's not really a good reason not to care...
________________________________________________________________________
Basil Mohamed Gohar
abu_hurayrah(a)hidayahonline.org
www.basilgohar.com
12:33 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 19:06 +0800, Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
I've been running without a blinking cursor now for almost 24
hours, and
I feel great. I recommend you all try it too. I don't even realize
that there was a change, and I have had no difficulty in identifying
where the cursor is.
I turned off blinking cursor ages ago... for power saving reasons. I've
never missed it. :)
Seriously people, try it before you cry about it.
8:57 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 10:43 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
> On a busy X session (I typically have 30-40+ windows open)
> not having a blinking cursor is crazy.
The problem with your arguments is that you call something "crazy"
without explaining *what* would be crazy about it.
But do you think it matters?
Look: if a proposal is forwarded to change dubious defaults you
are told to come back with a rigorous scientific usability study
showing X and Y. Knowing full well that's pretty much impossible.
Even claiming that 90%+ of computer users use Windows is qualified as
unsupported numbers and hand-waving.
However, if someone from Red Hat wakes up one morning and decides
to change a default that will affect _everybody_ using a computer,
they do it without a moment's notice. And we are supposed to swallow
it as such because someone came up with a *totally* unsupported
number of trees saved(1).
Only one out of your 30-40+ windows would be active/selected and
highlighted with different window border colours.
The blinking caret will not help you much to identify the window,
for that you have other clues. But in a typical editor window
in X (like Eclipse, Write, etc) where there is a lot of information
on the screen and the caret can be anywhere (it's not constrained
like in a terminal) it can be quite helpful for some people.
We are making these kind of changes driven by political motivation (2)
rather than technical merit (3). This is bad.
----
1. In fact, it's so unsupported that even when asked politely to
explain how in good $DEITY name they come up with it they didn't
bother.
2. Yes, it's political, based on the incorrect assumption that
we're gonna save trees.
3. There have been a weak attempt to dress it in a technical
argument, but it can't stand to any serious review/discussion.
However, this doesn't seem to interest anybody.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
12:46 a.m.
On Fri, 2009-02-06 at 09:57 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
Look: if a proposal is forwarded to change dubious defaults you
are told to come back with a rigorous scientific usability study
showing X and Y.
This isn't a usability argument. It's a power saving argument. The main
*counter* argument seems to be usability.
However, if someone from Red Hat wakes up one morning and decides
to change a default that will affect _everybody_ using a computer,
they do it without a moment's notice.
That's the privilege of being an upstream developer. Cry some more.
And we are supposed to swallow
it as such because someone came up with a *totally* unsupported
number of trees saved(1).
No, it's because someone directly measured a reduction in power usage.
Quite scientific, really.
2. Yes, it's political, based on the incorrect assumption that
we're gonna save trees.
No, the argument only got wrapped in plolitics because some people seem
to think that's a good idea. And you're only continuing it.
9:07 a.m.
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 00:46 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
No, it's because someone directly measured a reduction in power
usage.
Quite scientific, really.
Having some savings is not in and of itself an argument,
if not correctly quantified (1).
Engineering is all about balancing costs/benefits, and
it's arguably bad engineering to affect functionality
for savings that are probably way too small to measure.
And if you adopt the stance that any power saving is good,
why don't we do other things that are as simple to
implement and can easily save an order of magnitude more power:
- replace the background picture with just black
- default to a inverted color scheme (predominantly black)
- disable pulseaudio
The list can go on and on, but where would we end up?
These sort of things may make sense for some users,
but not by sneaking them in as changes in default
behavior. Prompt them at first-boot, let them opt in.
Come on folks, it is the reasonable thing to do.
1. The floated value of 2W is probably overstated by
at least an order of magnitude, most likely two.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
9:11 a.m.
Dimi Paun wrote:
These sort of things may make sense for some users,
but not by sneaking them in as changes in default
behavior. Prompt them at first-boot, let them opt in.
Come on folks, it is the reasonable thing to do.
No. Shoving all sort of configuration changes to first-boot is
definitely the wrong thing to do. The change has already been done. Time
to move on and stop arguing about this.
Rahul
9:25 a.m.
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Dimi Paun wrote:
> These sort of things may make sense for some users,
> but not by sneaking them in as changes in default
> behavior. Prompt them at first-boot, let them opt in.
> Come on folks, it is the reasonable thing to do.
No. Shoving all sort of configuration changes to first-boot is
definitely the wrong thing to do. The change has already been done. Time
to move on and stop arguing about this.
Rahul
I turned off the blink and actually prefer it this way. One issue I
haven't seen discussed is that if the text cursor is blinking, then it's
invisible about half the time, so one has to stare at the window for
some period of time, averaging maybe a second, to locate it. If the
text cursor is non-blinking, then it can always be seen immediately, so
there's probably a productivity gain for the user.
I should mention also that there appears to be a bug in that even after
the blinking is disabled, occasionally I'll see my gnome-terminal text
cursor blinking anyway. It doesn't happen often, but twice I've seen
the blinking (once on each of two machines), then checked
System/Preferences/Hardware/Keyboard to verify that it was disabled.
After doing this, I noticed that the text cursor was no longer blinking.
These machines were fully updated.
9:37 a.m.
Andre Robatino wrote:
I should mention also that there appears to be a bug in that even
after
the blinking is disabled, occasionally I'll see my gnome-terminal text
cursor blinking anyway.
Please file a bug report on this. If you can find a way to reproduce it
easily, that would be very helpful.
Rahul
9:43 a.m.
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
Andre Robatino wrote:
> I should mention also that there appears to be a bug in that even
> after the blinking is disabled, occasionally I'll see my
> gnome-terminal text cursor blinking anyway.
Please file a bug report on this. If you can find a way to reproduce it
easily, that would be very helpful.
Rahul
I will probably do this in a couple of weeks, since it's only been a few
days since disabling the blinking, and some more time may allow me to
detect a pattern. Should it be filed under gnome-terminal, or is some
other component more likely to be responsible?
9:45 a.m.
Andre Robatino wrote:
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Andre Robatino wrote:
>
>> I should mention also that there appears to be a bug in that even
>> after the blinking is disabled, occasionally I'll see my
>> gnome-terminal text cursor blinking anyway.
>
> Please file a bug report on this. If you can find a way to reproduce
> it easily, that would be very helpful.
>
> Rahul
>
I will probably do this in a couple of weeks, since it's only been a few
days since disabling the blinking, and some more time may allow me to
detect a pattern. Should it be filed under gnome-terminal, or is some
other component more likely to be responsible?
File it where you can see it and it can be reassigned if necessary.
Rahul
10:02 a.m.
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 10:07 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
- replace the background picture with just black
- default to a inverted color scheme (predominantly black)
On modern hardware, black actually costs more power than white. In
order to make black, the existing white light has to be filtered.
- disable pulseaudio
Pulseaudio actually lets the sound card go to sleep between uses which
increases power savings.
Perhaps you should do some research before suggesting powersaving ideas.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
11:51 a.m.
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 08:02 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
> - disable pulseaudio
Pulseaudio actually lets the sound card go to sleep between uses which
increases power savings.
Except that on my box it systematically starts eating away the CPU
and drives the temperature through the roof.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=438594
But this bug is reported against F8, I really hope it is fixed in F10.
Too bad F10 will not even install for me:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=467904
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=471737
I remember reading your interview about F10 where you claimed
F10 is the first Fedora released without a major bug outstanding.
Not being able to run the installed on a fairly large class
of machines (I'd venture to say most desktop systems that use
RAID will just use the BIOS one) is a rather important bug...
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
12:52 a.m.
Jud Craft wrote:
No offense, but you guys are arguing about a blinking cursor.
Well, we actually are arguing about 2 different issues at the same time:
1. Dropping a feature - This is largely a matter of personal taste and
of use-case.
2. Somebody setting up a bold _claim_ without providing facts, and
without proving generality.
Ralf
9:49 a.m.
Well, we actually are arguing about 2 different issues at the same
time:
Well, you must agree, that unfortunately translates to "we are arguing
about whether a cursor blinks."
Don't get me wrong, everyone's obviously put a large amount of thought
into this debate. I want to applaud them for their...dedication.
And yes, I am jesting. But I'll give it a rest, since it's like
telling a hilarious joke in a foreign country that no one gets, the
situation itself being as humorous at the joke. "Meta-humor" I
suppose.
8:40 p.m.
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 08:02 -0800, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 10:07 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> - replace the background picture with just black
> - default to a inverted color scheme (predominantly black)
On modern hardware, black actually costs more power than white. In
order to make black, the existing white light has to be filtered.
Got my Kill-a-watt meter. I wasn't able to measure a difference between
a black screen and a white screen on my wife's eMachines m6805 laptop.
However, I measured a trashy old (1997) Sceptre 13in CRT with both solid
black and white desktop backgrounds and various resolutions and refresh
rates:
Textmode (Black) 40W
800x600@60 44W - 53W
1024x768@60 47W - 57W
800x600@75 49W - 58W
My ancient (1988?) Mitsubishi 26in TV ranges between 80W and 100W with
black and white screens.
So I'm definitely measuring a big difference between black and white
with CRTs. Signal bandwidth also makes a difference. Other than a few
laptops I don't own any LCDs to test though. The laptops show no
measurable difference.
10:17 a.m.
On Sat, Feb 07, 2009 at 10:07:27AM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
- replace the background picture with just black
That would save power, but it's not the only answer - framebuffer
compression implementations tend to be per line, so as long as most of
your information content is in the vertical axis rather than the
horizontal one you'll get the same power savings.
- default to a inverted color scheme (predominantly black)
That's not how LCDs work - black will, if anything, consume more power.
- disable pulseaudio
And Pulseaudio actually lets us reduce power consumption by increasing
the fragment size and reducing the interrupt load.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
2:18 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 21:07 +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
cursor anyway.
Or you're reading text on the screen and not actively diddling the mouse
of the keyboard.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
2:42 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 09:07:41PM +0100, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with
no
cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped, and the loss is users
wondering where the damn cursor is (there are good reasons it was made
to blink in the first place)
We're talking about different orders of time. The screen is idle when
nothing is being drawn to it - that is, the screen will typically be
idle the vast majority of the time even if the session is active.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
6:29 p.m.
Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
> Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad T400
> could go to 10,3W when idle
But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped,
Agreed.
I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that people can
reproduce this claim.
Ralf#
6:46 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 01:29:05AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
>
>> Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad T400
>> could go to 10,3W when idle
>
> But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
> cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped,
Agreed.
I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that people can
reproduce this claim.
Those were already provided.
josh
7:13 p.m.
Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 01:29:05AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>> Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
>>
>>> Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad T400
>>> could go to 10,3W when idle
>> But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
>> cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped,
> Agreed.
>
> I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that people can
> reproduce this claim.
Those were already provided.
Are you referring to Felix Miata's table?
To me these read more as a joke but real defined testing scenarios.
Ralf
7:20 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 02:13:18AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Josh Boyer wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 01:29:05AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>> Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>>> Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
>>>
>>>> Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad T400
>>>> could go to 10,3W when idle
>>> But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
>>> cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped,
>> Agreed.
>>
>> I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that people
>> can reproduce this claim.
>
> Those were already provided.
Are you referring to Felix Miata's table?
To me these read more as a joke but real defined testing scenarios.
No. Matthew already outlined exactly how he took his measurements.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02387.html
josh
7:59 p.m.
Josh Boyer wrote:
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 02:13:18AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Josh Boyer wrote:
>> On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 01:29:05AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
>>> Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
>>>> Le mardi 03 février 2009 à 17:24 +0100, Tomasz Torcz a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>> Uhm, sorry? The talk was of about 1-2W. Given that my Thinkpad
T400
>>>>> could go to 10,3W when idle
>>>> But when it's idle, you are in screensaver or blank screen with no
>>>> cursor anyway. The "wins" are massively overhyped,
>>> Agreed.
>>>
>>> I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that people
>>> can reproduce this claim.
>> Those were already provided.
> Are you referring to Felix Miata's table?
>
> To me these read more as a joke but real defined testing scenarios.
No. Matthew already outlined exactly how he took his measurements.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02387.html
OK, he
measured a random sample in a single setup, without providing
details of what he actually did - Without providing these details, it's
just one sample without much significance.
He did not specify which software was running, what with this machine
during the measurement etc.
Also: 1-2W of ca. 100W is 1-2% of the absolute value.
If the measurement device should be this
http://www.powermeterstore.com/p1206/watts_up_pro.php?p_tab=specs
which is specified to have an accuracy of
"+/- 3% (loads above 10 watts)",
then this measurement is below the accuracy of the device and not much
more but a "tendency".
Ralf
8:03 p.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 02:59 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
OK, he measured a random sample in a single setup, without providing
details of what he actually did - Without providing these details, it's
just one sample without much significance.
He did not specify which software was running, what with this machine
during the measurement etc.
Also: 1-2W of ca. 100W is 1-2% of the absolute value.
If the measurement device should be this
http://www.powermeterstore.com/p1206/watts_up_pro.php?p_tab=specs
which is specified to have an accuracy of
"+/- 3% (loads above 10 watts)",
then this measurement is below the accuracy of the device and not much
more but a "tendency".
Yes, I think we should definitely have this kind of discussion before we
change any code.
Figure for each 1 line of code we need to have at least 30 messages
about it.
We'll be just like the folks who write code for airplanes. :)
-sv
1:42 a.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 02:59 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Also: 1-2W of ca. 100W is 1-2% of the absolute value.
If the measurement device should be this
http://www.powermeterstore.com/p1206/watts_up_pro.php?p_tab=specs
which is specified to have an accuracy of
"+/- 3% (loads above 10 watts)",
then this measurement is below the accuracy of the device and not much
more but a "tendency".
And just what do you think the nature of this inaccuracy is? Even if the
meter is 3% off in absolute terms, unless the inaccuracy is somehow
non-monotonic, it is still perfectly valid as a relative measure. Which
is what is at question here. It doesn't matter what units you use, watts
$$$ or trees, it's still saving something.
1:54 a.m.
Callum Lerwick wrote:
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 02:59 +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
> Also: 1-2W of ca. 100W is 1-2% of the absolute value.
> If the measurement device should be this
> http://www.powermeterstore.com/p1206/watts_up_pro.php?p_tab=specs
> which is specified to have an accuracy of
> "+/- 3% (loads above 10 watts)",
> then this measurement is below the accuracy of the device and not much
> more but a "tendency".
And just what do you think the nature of this inaccuracy is? Even if the
meter is 3% off in absolute terms, unless the inaccuracy is somehow
non-monotonic, it is still perfectly valid as a relative measure.
If you have any
clues about measuring, you know the answers.
Which
is what is at question here. It doesn't matter what units you use, watts
$$$ or trees, it's still saving something.
The unit to use here is Wh.
Ralf
9:33 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 20:20 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
No. Matthew already outlined exactly how he took his measurements.
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02387.html
The problem with this measurement is that it measures max wattage
when the cursor blinks. But for a typical user browsing, reading
documents, reading email, etc. the cursor blinks a tiny portion
of the time, only when they _write_ an email. I'd venture to say <10%.
If that is so we're looking at a saving of about 0.2W for a typical
user. Is this enough to flip the default?
Here's another proposal: during first boot prompt the user to
change the default to no-blink, explain the benefits, tell
them how to switch back if they don't care for it. This way
nobody will get frustrated or will be surprised their system
no longer works the way they expect it to.
I know it is more work, but this affects an important UI behavior.
If 0.2W is not all that important to justify the work, lets drop it.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
9:45 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 10:33 PM, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 20:20 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> No. Matthew already outlined exactly how he took his measurements.
>
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02387.html
The problem with this measurement is that it measures max wattage
s/wattage/power/
there's no such thing as wattage.
when the cursor blinks. But for a typical user browsing, reading
documents, reading email, etc. the cursor blinks a tiny portion
of the time, only when they _write_ an email. I'd venture to say <10%.
If that is so we're looking at a saving of about 0.2W for a typical
user. Is this enough to flip the default?
Here's another proposal: during first boot prompt the user to
change the default to no-blink, explain the benefits, tell
them how to switch back if they don't care for it. This way
nobody will get frustrated or will be surprised their system
no longer works the way they expect it to.
I know it is more work, but this affects an important UI behavior.
If 0.2W is not all that important to justify the work, lets drop it.
that, according to my calculation, means saving 1 tree every 23 days.
If you promise you are going to plant a tree every 23 days, I think we
should restart the discussions to consider this issue.
Orcan
9:56 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 22:45 -0500, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
that, according to my calculation, means saving 1 tree every 23
days.
If you promise you are going to plant a tree every 23 days, I think we
should restart the discussions to consider this issue.
May I ask how you come up with these numbers?
Who is burning trees to generate electricity?
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
10:21 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 22:33 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 20:20 -0500, Josh Boyer wrote:
> No. Matthew already outlined exactly how he took his measurements.
>
> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2009-January/msg02387.html
The problem with this measurement is that it measures max wattage
when the cursor blinks. But for a typical user browsing, reading
documents, reading email, etc. the cursor blinks a tiny portion
of the time, only when they _write_ an email. I'd venture to say <10%.
If that is so we're looking at a saving of about 0.2W for a typical
user. Is this enough to flip the default?
Here's another proposal: during first boot prompt the user to
change the default to no-blink, explain the benefits, tell
them how to switch back if they don't care for it. This way
nobody will get frustrated or will be surprised their system
no longer works the way they expect it to.
Where does the stupid come from?
Dave.
I know it is more work, but this affects an important UI behavior.
If 0.2W is not all that important to justify the work, lets drop it.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
11:13 p.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 14:21 +1000, Dave Airlie wrote:
> Here's another proposal: during first boot prompt the user
to
> change the default to no-blink, explain the benefits, tell
> them how to switch back if they don't care for it. This way
> nobody will get frustrated or will be surprised their system
> no longer works the way they expect it to.
Where does the stupid come from?
If you refer to my earlier comment, again, it wasn't directed
at anyone. All I wanted to say is that a blanket statement like
"in Fedora tradition is not an argument" does not hold water.
It's like saying "in Fedora we don't care to learn from the past".
That wouldn't be smart :)
I was frustrated, and I was too direct and obscure.
If it was taken personal I apologize.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
7:56 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 04, 2009 at 01:29:05AM +0100, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
I think it's time to demand measurement procedures such that
people can
reproduce this claim.
Could we calm down a little on the "demand" front? I've posted an
explanation of what I did earlier in the thread. I'm not really sure how
I could be more transparent here.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
12:24 p.m.
On 2009/02/03 10:15 (GMT-0500) Andrew Haley composed:
More efficiency is always better
Efficiency isn't always what it appears. Foo's car is most efficient at
50KPH, so efficiency dictates that's the speed he should drive. Bar's car is
most efficient at 45KPH, so that's how fast efficiency dictates he drive. May
car is most efficient at 57KPH, so that's the speed efficiency dictates I
drive. The speed limit is 50KPH. The road, which is the exclusive path
between origin and destination of Foo, Bar and me, is one lane wide for each
direction. Foo's, Bar's & my direction are the same, and our desired ETAs
preclude driving while the other two are not enroute. What is more efficient?
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
12:25 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 01:24:03PM -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/02/03 10:15 (GMT-0500) Andrew Haley composed:
> More efficiency is always better
Efficiency isn't always what it appears. Foo's car is most efficient at
50KPH, so efficiency dictates that's the speed he should drive. Bar's car is
most efficient at 45KPH, so that's how fast efficiency dictates he drive. May
car is most efficient at 57KPH, so that's the speed efficiency dictates I
drive. The speed limit is 50KPH. The road, which is the exclusive path
between origin and destination of Foo, Bar and me, is one lane wide for each
direction. Foo's, Bar's & my direction are the same, and our desired ETAs
preclude driving while the other two are not enroute. What is more efficient?
Walk or ride a bicycle.
josh
12:38 p.m.
2009/2/3 Felix Miata <mrmazda(a)ij.net>:
Efficiency isn't always what it appears. Foo's car is most
efficient at
50KPH, so efficiency dictates that's the speed he should drive. Bar's car is
most efficient at 45KPH, so that's how fast efficiency dictates he drive. May
car is most efficient at 57KPH, so that's the speed efficiency dictates I
drive. The speed limit is 50KPH. The road, which is the exclusive path
between origin and destination of Foo, Bar and me, is one lane wide for each
direction. Foo's, Bar's & my direction are the same, and our desired ETAs
preclude driving while the other two are not enroute. What is more efficient?
Meet, use your car for Foo, Bar and yourself, and divide the speeding
ticket by three.
--
Thomas Moschny <thomas.moschny(a)gmail.com>
12:51 p.m.
Felix Miata wrote:
On 2009/02/03 10:15 (GMT-0500) Andrew Haley composed:
> More efficiency is always better
Efficiency isn't always what it appears. Foo's car is most efficient at
50KPH, so efficiency dictates that's the speed he should drive. Bar's car is
most efficient at 45KPH, so that's how fast efficiency dictates he drive. May
car is most efficient at 57KPH, so that's the speed efficiency dictates I
drive. The speed limit is 50KPH. The road, which is the exclusive path
between origin and destination of Foo, Bar and me, is one lane wide for each
direction. Foo's, Bar's & my direction are the same, and our desired ETAs
preclude driving while the other two are not enroute. What is more efficient?
There's no way to tell from the information you've given.
What is the point of this question?
Andrew.
12:11 p.m.
On 2009/02/03 11:04 (GMT+0100) Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) composed:
Actually, I would say that basically everyone benefits from any
power
savings, no matter how small they are (you know, reducing our energy
consumption, saving the planet, all of that...)
By that analogy, all desktop puters should be shut down whenever they are not
generating responses to inputs, or actually accepting inputs, and the time
lost in shutdown and restart is an acceptable cost, because the energy
savings is non-zero.
There are such things as reasonable threshholds and de minimus. I'm not
convinced that that data presented for this so far is valid, much less above
threshhold. 8 million trees naturally sounds like a lot when out of context,
like the way politicians typically speak of spending and taxes. In the
context of double or triple digit billions, 8 million isn't particularly much.
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
12:18 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:11 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
8 million trees naturally sounds like a lot when out of context,
like the way politicians typically speak of spending and taxes. In the
context of double or triple digit billions, 8 million isn't
particularly much.
To add insult to injury, this like saying this is going to save
_thousands_ of puppies every month! How the heck does one figure
how many trees you save?!? Who's burning trees to generate
electricity?
I'm pretty sure we'd save a lot more trees/puppies/lives if all
the overweight people loose a few pounds. I propose we make the
desktop graphic promote that idea given that it costs nothing to
do and yet can have such a potential good effect on the planet.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
12:46 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 01:18:50PM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
I'm pretty sure we'd save a lot more trees/puppies/lives if
all
the overweight people loose a few pounds. I propose we make the
desktop graphic promote that idea given that it costs nothing to
do and yet can have such a potential good effect on the planet.
It's not free - choice of default wallpaper can save up to 0.5W on
systems with framebuffer compression support.
--
Matthew Garrett | mjg59(a)srcf.ucam.org
12:48 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 18:46 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 01:18:50PM -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
> I'm pretty sure we'd save a lot more trees/puppies/lives if all
> the overweight people loose a few pounds. I propose we make the
> desktop graphic promote that idea given that it costs nothing to
> do and yet can have such a potential good effect on the planet.
It's not free - choice of default wallpaper can save up to 0.5W on
systems with framebuffer compression support.
Does this mean that its not bikeshed painting that's been going on, but
bikeshed wallpapering?
*ducks*
Brian
6:51 a.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 11:04 +0100, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:
> The only
> people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
> trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
Actually, I would say that basically everyone benefits from any power
savings, no matter how small they are (you know, reducing our energy
consumption, saving the planet, all of that...)
It irks me that people have to couch this argument in
"environmentalism". I'm much too broke to have the luxury of engaging in
that game of elitist one-upmanship. What I *do* care about is that
number to the right of the $ on my power bills...
That blinking cursor *directly* costs me money that could otherwise go
towards food, bills, rent and paying off debt. Some of us are on a tight
budget.
(Anxiously waiting for UPS to bring me my kill-a-watt meter...)
5:58 p.m.
On Thu, 5 Feb 2009, Richard Hughes wrote:
On Thu, 2009-02-05 at 06:51 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
> (Anxiously waiting for UPS to bring me my kill-a-watt meter...)
If you're running rawhide, and it's a kill-a-watt with usb connection,
it'll "just work" with gnome-power-manager.
At the risk of being off topic, does such a thing really exist? If so
please point me towards a link where I can get one. googleing kill-a-watt usb
is not useful.
Sorry for the extra noise.
Regards,
--
Tom Diehl tdiehl(a)rogueind.com Spamtrap address mtd123(a)rogueind.com
10:35 a.m.
Tom Diehl (tdiehl(a)rogueind.com) said:
At the risk of being off topic, does such a thing really exist? If so
please point me towards a link where I can get one. googleing kill-a-watt
usb
is not useful.
https://www.wattsupmeters.com/secure/products.php
is what he's referring to, AFAIK.
Bill
10:01 a.m.
On Thu, 2009-02-05 at 06:51 -0600, Callum Lerwick wrote:
That blinking cursor *directly* costs me money that could otherwise
go
towards food, bills, rent and paying off debt. Some of us are on a
tight budget.
Give me a break. Even if you are a heavy user (14h/day, 50% typing),
that would be about $0.02/month.
For a typical user that would be more like $0.001/month. That's
1/10 of a cent a month.
You can probably save more by changing your wallpaper or not watching
youtube videos. Or simply not starting the gazillion daemons we just
can't seem to be able to get rid of.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
5:44 a.m.
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 02:20 +0000, Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> Min power Default Max performance
>
> So a blinking cursor indicates higher performance than a non-blinking
> one? You can't represent power management on a one dimensional scale.
> That's poor UI.
Whatever. This can be worked around.
Somehow on this forum saying that "90%+ of users use Windows" is a
"made up statistic" whereas saying that turning off blinking on a cursor
is going to save millions of trees is self evident. Yay!
Changing defaults like this is just a way to shoot ourselves in the
foot. Real customers/users are very finicky about the tiniest of
details. Dealing with them directly is a great learning experience.
Besides, we seem to enjoy pain: nobody will appreciate a non-blinking
cursor,
Wrong.
yet we know _some_ will have a big problem with it. The only
people benefiting from it is the ones doing mental calculations about
trees saved. That's a tiny minority.
Ignore the power savings aspect just for a second.
My television has a power on led below the screen. It blinks when the tv
is starting up and when the remote control is used, both cases have a very
clear and sane purpose. It does NOT blink while you're watching the tv,
and for a good reason too.
Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky the
Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at
all to attend to. It can also cause seizures for people with epilepsy or
other disorders.
Now, somebody please tell me: what is the grande justification of
consuming a few extra wats per every computer in the world to attempt to
draw the users attention to exactly nothing, despite being known to cause
health issues to some people while doing so? And "it's always done that"
is not an answer.
- Panu -
7:27 a.m.
On Tuesday, 03 February 2009 at 12:44, Panu Matilainen wrote:
[...]
Ignore the power savings aspect just for a second.
My television has a power on led below the screen. It blinks when the tv
is starting up and when the remote control is used, both cases have a very
clear and sane purpose. It does NOT blink while you're watching the tv,
and for a good reason too.
Bad analogy. TV is non-interactive.
Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky the
Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at
all to attend to.
False.
It can also cause seizures for people with epilepsy or
other disorders.
Really? Do you have links to some conclusive research?
Now, somebody please tell me: what is the grande justification of
consuming a few extra wats per every computer in the world to attempt to
draw the users attention to exactly nothing, despite being known to cause
health issues to some people while doing so? And "it's always done that"
is not an answer.
While I agree that power savings are important, the blinking cursor indicates
(to me) that the application is waiting for my (textual) input "here"
or that "this is where you stopped typing". Both are worth drawing my
attention. So please, change the default if you will, but mention it in the
release notes and give me a way to turn it back on.
Regards,
R.
--
Fedora http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Rathann
RPMFusion http://rpmfusion.org | MPlayer http://mplayerhq.hu
"Faith manages."
-- Delenn to Lennier in Babylon 5:"Confessions and Lamentations"
1:10 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 14:27 +0100, Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski wrote:
On Tuesday, 03 February 2009 at 12:44, Panu Matilainen wrote:
[...]
> Ignore the power savings aspect just for a second.
>
> My television has a power on led below the screen. It blinks when the tv
> is starting up and when the remote control is used, both cases have a very
> clear and sane purpose. It does NOT blink while you're watching the tv,
> and for a good reason too.
Bad analogy. TV is non-interactive.
My TV is connected directly to a PS3 ... analogy win!
So please, change the default if you will, but mention it in the
release notes and give me a way to turn it back on.
From the start of this thread it was obviously the intention to just
change the default (indeed the subject still implies that).
It's not like anyone proposed to rename the option "blinking cursor of
death, only turn on if you want to kill the planet".
--
James Antill - james(a)fedoraproject.org
"I'd just like to see a realistic approach to updates via
packages." -- Les Mikesell
1:20 p.m.
James Antill wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 14:27 +0100, Dominik 'Rathann'
Mierzejewski wrote:
> On Tuesday, 03 February 2009 at 12:44, Panu Matilainen wrote:
> [...]
>> Ignore the power savings aspect just for a second.
>>
>> My television has a power on led below the screen. It blinks when the tv
>> is starting up and when the remote control is used, both cases have a very
>> clear and sane purpose. It does NOT blink while you're watching the tv,
>> and for a good reason too.
> Bad analogy. TV is non-interactive.
My TV is connected directly to a PS3 ... analogy win!
Um... no. That makes your TV even /less/ interactive than if you were
watching television (in which case you might change channels
occasionally). I don't interact directly with my monitor. I turn it on
and off via power strip, and my /computer/ makes it do stuff. I'm
interacting with the computer.
(I'm not going to get much involved in the topic at hand, as I've
decided it's not important enough to waste my time on. I will say,
however, that I turned on blinking caret in Konsole. I prefer my caret
to blink, as I find it easier to tell what has focus that way.)
(Oh, and I do prefer "caret"; not because it isn't a text cursor, but
simply because it's less ambiguous. Is "cursor" the text cursor or the
mouse cursor? ;-) )
--
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
--
We interrupt this e-mail to bring you a lame signature attempting to be
witty.
11:04 a.m.
Michael Schwendt wrote:
On Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:20:24 -0600, Matthew wrote:
> (Oh, and I do prefer "caret"; not because it isn't a text cursor, but
> simply because it's less ambiguous. Is "cursor" the text cursor or the
> mouse cursor? ;-) )
Mouse pointer. ;o)
Indeed. We should stop using "cursor" all together, as we have "caret"
(text) and "pointer" (mouse) ;-).
--
Matthew
Please do not quote my e-mail address unobfuscated in message bodies.
--
"Let's call it an accidental feature." -- Larry Wall
12:02 p.m.
On 2009/02/03 13:44 (GMT+0200) Panu Matilainen composed:
Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky the
Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at
all to attend to.
No, it's drawing attention to:
1-point of focus
2-state ready to accept keyboard input, as opposed to lit up, but otherwise
useless
The blink for the reasons above is a tradition that dates back at least 45
years, probably a lot longer.
--
"Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is helpful for building
others up." Ephesians 4:29 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/
9:52 a.m.
On Tuesday 03 February 2009 11:44:42 Panu Matilainen wrote:
Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky
the
Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at
all to attend to. It can also cause seizures for people with epilepsy or
other disorders.
Now, somebody please tell me: what is the grande justification of
consuming a few extra wats per every computer in the world to attempt to
draw the users attention to exactly nothing, despite being known to cause
health issues to some people while doing so? And "it's always done that"
is not an answer.
Where the input location is in a large text document or piece of code I've just
opened up in a 211x72 xterm? If (for some reason) it's not in the middle of the
screen, it can be hard to spot; I'd like for it to blink a few times when I
first give the xterm focus (yes, it's more or less full screen, and yes, I have
multiple screens, so I've completely lost track of where in the window I was
when I turn back to it).
11:02 a.m.
On Wed, 2009-02-04 at 15:52 +0000, Bill Crawford wrote:
On Tuesday 03 February 2009 11:44:42 Panu Matilainen wrote:
> Blinking things tend to draw attention, and in the case of Blinky the
> Cursor it's drawing your attention to the fact that there is nothing at
> all to attend to. It can also cause seizures for people with epilepsy or
> other disorders.
>
> Now, somebody please tell me: what is the grande justification of
> consuming a few extra wats per every computer in the world to attempt to
> draw the users attention to exactly nothing, despite being known to cause
> health issues to some people while doing so? And "it's always done
that"
> is not an answer.
Where the input location is in a large text document or piece of code I've just
opened up in a 211x72 xterm? If (for some reason) it's not in the middle of the
screen, it can be hard to spot; I'd like for it to blink a few times when I
first give the xterm focus (yes, it's more or less full screen, and yes, I have
multiple screens, so I've completely lost track of where in the window I was
when I turn back to it).
In these situations for me, the blinking of the cursor was no help in
finding it. Moving the cursor up or down via arrow keys was what led me
to find it.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
6:50 a.m.
On Wednesday 04 February 2009 17:02:14 Jesse Keating wrote:
In these situations for me, the blinking of the cursor was no help
in
finding it. Moving the cursor up or down via arrow keys was what led me
to find it.
I usually press Shift+V to highlight a line, much more visible ...
7:36 p.m.
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:29 PM, seth vidal wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 03:03 +0300, Pavel Alexeev (aka
Pahan-Hubbitus)
wrote:
> Matthew Garrett wrote:
> > The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
> > frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
> > region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
> > default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
> >
>
> Yes. I love blinking cursor. And it is a history now.
> If there settings to enable it - why you can't disable it if you want?
the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we disable
it then we save power on each machine.
More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
+1 to disabling it.
A quick calculation showed me that,
assuming there are 10 million Fedora computers in the world, running 7/24,
saving 2W per computers saves about 1 relatively large size tree (40
tons) every 2.3 days.
Just for the record.
Orcan
7:53 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 20:36 -0500, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 7:29 PM, seth vidal wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 03:03 +0300, Pavel Alexeev (aka Pahan-Hubbitus)
> wrote:
>> Matthew Garrett wrote:
>> > The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
>> > frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
>> > region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
>> > default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
>> >
>>
>> Yes. I love blinking cursor. And it is a history now.
>> If there settings to enable it - why you can't disable it if you want?
>
> the point is most people won't care enough either way. And if we disable
> it then we save power on each machine.
>
> More power saved == less energy used == yay for the world.
>
> +1 to disabling it.
>
A quick calculation showed me that,
assuming there are 10 million Fedora computers in the world, running 7/24,
saving 2W per computers saves about 1 relatively large size tree (40
tons) every 2.3 days.
Just for the record.
Seems like a winner to me.
thanks,
-sv
12:51 p.m.
Orcan Ogetbil (oget.fedora(a)gmail.com) said:
A quick calculation showed me that,
assuming there are 10 million Fedora computers in the world, running 7/24,
saving 2W per computers saves about 1 relatively large size tree (40
tons) every 2.3 days.
Just for the record.
Considering:
- the 2W savings is only on a patched radeon driver, AIUI
(although it could theoretically be ported to other drivers
such as nouveau (not intel), given enough specs)
- the savings is only if the screen is otherwise not updating
- if the screen stays this way for more than a couple of minutes,
the screensaver will kick in
this estimate is many orders of magnitude too high.
That being said, just flip the default already.
Bill
1:06 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:51 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
- the 2W savings is only on a patched radeon driver, AIUI
(although it could theoretically be ported to other drivers
This is great news!
The user will now get different experience depending on what
graphic card they use!
Folks, this borders insanity. If we do that, it has to be
as a _system_ setting that affects all drivers equally.
This is like turning off flush only on a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
because it saves 1W for those drives.
This way lies madness.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
1:09 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 14:06 -0500, Dimi Paun wrote:
On Tue, 2009-02-03 at 13:51 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
>
> - the 2W savings is only on a patched radeon driver, AIUI
> (although it could theoretically be ported to other drivers
This is great news!
The user will now get different experience depending on what
graphic card they use!
Folks, this borders insanity. If we do that, it has to be
as a _system_ setting that affects all drivers equally.
This is like turning off flush only on a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
because it saves 1W for those drives.
This way lies madness.
--
Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com>
Lattica, Inc.
Ahem. The blink would be off everywhere. Only certain drivers will
save power due to this at first, more to follow.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
9:27 a.m.
Matthew Garrett wrote:
The blinking cursor causes the processor and GPU to be woken up
frequently. On one of my test systems, this causes somewhere in the
region of 2 Watts of extra power consumption. I'd like to change the
default for this to false. Anyone have any objections?
Is it possible to change the color too btw?
I can't stand the blinking cursor, especially the block cursor in
terminals. I've configured my xterms to show a colored cursor though,
so you can easily find it even though it doesn't blink.
cheers,
Gerd
5556
days inactive
5565
days old
153 comments
50 participants
participants (50)
-
Andre Robatino -
Andrew Haley -
Andy Gospodarek -
Basil Mohamed Gohar -
Bastien Nocera -
Behdad Esfahbod -
Ben Boeckel -
Bill Crawford -
Bill Nottingham -
Brian Wheeler -
Callum Lerwick -
Caolán McNamara -
Chuck Anderson -
Conrad Meyer -
David Airlie -
Dimi Paun -
Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski -
Felix Miata -
Gerd Hoffmann -
James Antill -
Jef Spaleta -
Jesse Keating -
John Reiser -
Josh Boyer -
Jud Craft -
Kevin Fenzi -
Mary Ellen Foster -
Mat Booth -
Mathieu Bridon -
Matthew Garrett -
Matthew Woehlke -
Matthias Clasen -
Michael Schwendt -
Miloslav Trmač -
Nicolas Mailhot -
Orcan Ogetbil -
Panu Matilainen -
Paul W. Frields -
Pavel Alexeev (aka Pahan-Hubbitus) -
Peter Robinson -
Rahul Sundaram -
Ralf Corsepius -
Ralf Ertzinger -
Richard Hughes -
Seth Vidal -
Thomas Moschny -
Tom Callaway -
Tom Diehl -
Tom Tromey -
Tomasz Torcz