KDE Plasma 6.6 will finally stop the system sleeping when gaming with a controller
Finally! One of the most annoying issues is your system going to sleep while gaming with a controller, and KDE Plasma 6.6 will solve it.
As noted in a fresh This Week in Plasma blog post, developer Nate Graham notes "Using a game controller will now count as 'activity', stopping the system from automatically going to sleep or locking the screen", which solves a bug report opened all the way back in 2013.
There's plenty more, but for me that really is the headline fix as it's happened far too many times for me to the point that I often just entirely turn off any sleep management or screen locking.
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/01/kde-plasma-6-6-will-finally-stop-the-system-sleeping-when-gaming-with-a-controller/Open linkView original on literature.cafe
20 replies
Huh, this has never happened to me while gaming with a controller.
This varies on the setup. A lot of gaming distributions ship with "gamemode" which among other things, may prevent your system from going into sleep whenever a game is running.
I presume the change in Plasma is so it considers controller input as "user presence" and doesn't go to the screensaver/sleep
The games you play may aquire a wake lock while open/running.
Strangely enough, this just happened to me 2 days ago.
Still faster than windows fixing their Update and shutdown bug lol
This KDE bug was reported in 2013. I’m scared to look up the Windows bug report date…
Windows 10 betas didn't even come out until like 2014 so KDE beats them.
Windows 11 still has screens from Windows 95 in it…
(The format dialogue is one of the easiest to find.)
I've had my screen timeout set to never for so long I forgot I had this issue.
That's an odd issue. Still glad they fixed it.
Fuck yeah, I'm tired of having to use the trackpad to move the mouse because my screen dimmed.
OMG finally. One of my top irritations since switching to Linux is that I can't use system power-saving features because they don't respect my ganepads or wireless keyboard and wake.
Guess I won't need joystickwake anymore.
"Activity" just for determining sleep or does it count as general HID activity? Are drifting controller sticks the new mouse jiggler?
Calibration can help with drifting sticks.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Gamepad#Setting_up_deadzones_and_calibration
It's a bit late for me, I've now gone back to XFCE with X11 and I'm very happy with it.
KDE not beating their "windows vista of linux" allegations but at least they're addressing issues eventually.
I've never heard of them.
I will say though, I have used KDE for a very long time. I cant think of any complaints other than that one, and even then, there has been a button to block sleep and screen locking after inactivity for I don't even know how long.
It was something I remember seeing on reddit some 10 years ago or so, don't know how much its stuck but it stuck for me
Literally no other desktop has this functionality...