[ale] bogus idel time for user

[John Heim]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Geoffrey Myers" <lists at serioustechnology.com>
To: "Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts" <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Monday, January 30, 2012 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: [ale] bogus idel time for user


> John Heim wrote:
>> The problem appears on my own linux desktop too. I rebooted my machine, 
>> and
>> then did a 'who -Htu'. The results are below.  Note that for "Idle", it 
>> says
>> "old" for my login.  This is a debian squeeze machine.  It just appears 
>> as
>> if idle time means nothing for a user. I was thinking it might be like 
>> CPU
>> idle time which is the amount of time the CPU has been idel since last 
>> boot.
>> So every millisecond you're not doing something, like the time between
>> keystrokes, counts as idle time. But why would it say "old" when I just
>> logged n after rebooting? Actually, the idle time for a user as shown by
>> finger does appear to be total idle time  for a user since last reboot.
>> Useless information if there ever was any.  If you're a fast typer, you'd
>> have less idle time than a slow typer.
>
> Idle time means the time since they last moved the mouse or entered
> something at the keyboard.
But its not. I mean, I'm typing the finger command at the console.  How can 
the idle time be anything but zero (or darn near it) if I'm typing the 
finger command in?  I mean, there could be some milliseconds between when I 
press enter and when the finger command gets my idle time from the system 
but not *6* hours. I logged out, logged back in, did a million things. Idle 
time is now *6* hours. Here's the output from finger:

Login: jheim             Name: John G Heim
Directory: /staff/jheim              Shell: /bin/bash
Office:  263-4189,  507 Van Vleck
On since Mon Jan 30 10:27 (CST) on tty7 from :0
    6 hours 36 minutes idle
     (messages off)
On since Mon Jan 30 10:28 (CST) on pts/0 from :0.0
Last login Mon Jan 30 11:49 (CST) on tty1
No mail.
Plan:
Plan?! You've got to be kidding.