Re: Attempted summary of suspend-blockers LKML thread, take three

Paul E. McKenney
2010-08-12T01:06:12Z

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 03:28:00AM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 1:28 AM, Paul E. McKenney
> <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Aug 11, 2010 at 10:18:51PM +0300, Felipe Contreras wrote:
> >> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 9:16 PM, Paul E. McKenney
> >> <paulmck@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> >> > But wouldn't an office suite run as a power-oblivious application on an
> >> > Android device?  After all, office applications do not need to run when
> >> > the screen is turned off, so these the applications do not need to use
> >> > suspend blockers.
> >>
> >> Ideally the system would be suspended even when the screen is on. If
> >> there are no "trusted" applications running at the same time, then
> >> openoffice wouldn't load at all. Right?
> >
> > My understanding is that Android systems in fact do not suspend when
> > the screen is on, and that most (perhaps all) other systems do not
> > opportunistically suspend at all.  There has been some speculation about
> > what a hypothetical Android having a non-volatile display might do,
> > but as far as I know, this is just speculation.
>
> I have a desktop system in mind. If opportunistic suspend is only
> triggered when the display is off, then it's no good for normal usage,
> and therefore dynamic PC needs to get its act together... specially
> for laptops.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that both opportunistic
suspend and dynamic power control should be used together, with dynamic
power control being used for short non-busy periods (as in between
keystrokes) and opportunistic suspend being used for longer non-busy
periods (as in while grabbing a coffee). That combination of usage
sounds promising to me.

That said, I don't know that anyone has really sat down and thought
through how one might apply suspend blockers to a desktop system.
I suspect that there are several ways to go about it.

Thanx, Paul