How to show time away from computer?

Question

I was wondering how to measure the time elapsed after, say, screensaver starts and then show that time on a freedesktop notification when back.

The xprintidle command gives you the idle time in milliseconds for the corresponding display — Stéphane Chazelas, Mar 12 '14 at 15:28
At least in my archlinux KDE4 system the command is not available if not installed from AUR, I'm looking for something more native if possible — Nico Rodsevich, Mar 12 '14 at 18:15
@NicoRodsevich What do you mean by "more native"? "In official Arch repos" doesn't necessarily equate to "more native". — Sparhawk, Jul 27 '14 at 1:47
@Sparhawk I mean something that is common to most GNU/Linux distros, that comes from the very beginning, with the install of the system — Nico Rodsevich, Jul 28 '14 at 3:19

delta24 · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-25 19:43:42Z

0

Add the following lines to your XResources file

~/.Xresources
xscreensaver.logFile:/var/log/xscreensaver.log
xscreensaver.verbose:true

This is if xcreensaver is your screensaver, you can replace it with your favorite screensaver utility.

You can then grep the log file.

answered Apr 25 '14 at 19:43

delta24

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Sorry I didn't comment before, didn't have the reputation to do so. I don't have that file in ~, only .Xdefaults and .Xauthority – Nico Rodsevich Jul 30 '14 at 15:40
You can create the file, I think Xdefaults also works. – delta24 Jul 31 '14 at 18:04

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