Peter Suetterlin said the following on 08/26/2010 05:33 AM:
So I repeat my statement, an idle system must not use substantial CPU time
Oh I got your point. I just disagree on a number of points. Not least of all what constitutes 'idle'. Just because you-the-user are not doing anything does not mean the system is idle. And I don't mean the background tasks. (Although I've run things like 'powertop' to see where the interrupts come from, and yes the video driver is up there in the top 5.) If you choose decorative eye-candy that consumes CPU then it will consume CPU. But do check the archives. In one sense 30% is getting off light. I met an anomalous condition where Firefox (which is gnome-native) under KDE4 with a certain revision xserver produced XSYNC problems. Everything would run fine until a certain icon in firefox was displayed. The Sync (XSYNC) with the video card was handled badly. A different icon set, running Gnome or a small change in xorg.conf fixed it. Eventually the xserver was revised. Just a very specific code path that involved many items. But if you want the 'dancing babies' of a decorative GUI this is a situation you can get into. Your system isn't idle just because you aren't interacting with it. Is this a shortcoming of compiz, kwin and others? Of course it is, in just the same way that its a shortcoming of beer, sugar-donuts, red meat and chocolate. You can choose not to overindulge. You can chose not to be <strike>an idle system</strike> a couch potato. I reported this problem, was told about the XSYNC problem, and worked with the team to resolve it rather than condemned the software and developers. But then I've been a PM as well as having worked in ATE. -- There's a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstance. You buy that, you pay with your soul. -Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org