Common myth is that system accounts its idle time to kapm-idled.
Unfotunately, it does not look like being truth.
First, look in apm_mainloop - it has very interesting comment:
* Ok, check all events, check for idle (and mark us
sleeping
* so as not to count towards the load average)..
Second, start something like gkrellm and watch it for some time. Pay
attention to displayed system time and CPU temp. You'll see very
interesting results. Most of the time CPU is IDLE - i.e. it displays 0%
(or near) and CPU temp is near its minimal value (in my case it is
usually 29C). But sometimes kapm-idled decides it has something to do as
well - and system time goes up at about 50% and CPU temp *goes up* as
well - good, it does not rocket as in case of burncpu, but it stays
above minimal values.
In both cases I do nothing except sitting there and looking at gkrellm.
which mean in both cases system is idle ...
So the main statement is - when your kapm-idled is shown as using 50% of
your CPU - it does really use this 50% of CPU. It does *not* sit there
idling (and cooling) your CPU but really keeps it running.
comments?
-andrej
