You can certainly give BOINC access to the X server, but we're talking about a service that downloads random binaries from not-really-trusted sources and runs them, so I wouldn't recommend this.

Removing the "functionality" provides the benefit of not spamming the system log to the point of rendering it unusable. Which is something that people care about. Also people care about a computation daemon not depending on X libraries.

The biggest problem about the existing idle detection is that it's architecturally wrong. The right architecture is a process running under the X or Wayland session and its user that signals to BOINC from the outside if it should do work or not. Gladly people are working on that. But I think you know that, since you commented on the issue.

Could we reenable idle detection in its current sorry state? Yes, but it's fundamentally at odds with users who want more security, see e.g. #4105. At some point we will run into conflicts between strengthening the sandboxing of the service and the current idle detection. If that were a fundamental conflict I would be happy to discuss it, but since a proper design would both allow idle detection and be secure that discussion doesn't make sense.

If you want this to work, my best advice is to check in with Germano about the state of his efforts or help get them in yourself. Resurrecting this broken mess isn't going to help anyone in the long run.

Not saying it's ideal in the long run. It should certainly be replaced as soon as possible. But until then, this is the only option. So I guess until then I'll keep compiling it on my own.

Removing the "functionality" provides the benefit of not spamming the system log to the point of rendering it unusable. Which is something that people care about. Also people care about a computation daemon not depending on X libraries.

• How do you think about any updates for these software dependencies?
• Would you like to add any more technical background information?

The issue that you've linked seems unrelated to idle detection, unless I'm missing something. And if you're using BOINC 7.25 as you wrote in the issue, you're probably not using this package here, which is at 7.24.1.

Apart from that, I don't really understand your questions. Not wanting boinc-client to depend on X libraries has nothing to do with whether they're up-to-date or not. You can find all technical background information in the issues linked above.

The issue that you've linked seems unrelated to idle detection,

Did you get an other impression from the software situation according to the message “Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified” than the feedback by Vitalii Koshura on 2023-09-27?

unless I'm missing something.

Probably.

Apart from that, I don't really understand your questions.

I am trying to find solutions for undesirable software behaviour which I observed on my openSUSE Tumbleweed system.

Which source code generates the mentioned message?

Not wanting boinc-client to depend on X libraries has nothing to do with whether they're up-to-date or not.

Would you like to influence progress for the issue “redesign Linux idle detection”?

I added some debug output in used source files.

Thus I wonder still about another test result like the following.

Sonne:~ # systemctl start boinc-client-variant.service && sleep 2 && systemctl stop boinc-client-variant.service
Sonne:~ # XX=/tmp/boinc_log-one_day.txt && YY=/tmp/boinc_log-one_day-only_with_Authorization_required.txt && journalctl --since=today --identifier=boinc > $XX && journalctl --since=today --identifier=boinc --grep='Authorization required' > $YY && diff --unified=1 $XX $YY
…
@@ -118836,69 +118764,2 @@
…
-Oct 02 08:31:02 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:02 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.25.0 for x86_64-suse-linux-gnu
-Oct 02 08:31:02 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:02 [---] This a development version of BOINC and may not function properly
-Oct 02 08:31:02 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:02 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task, benchmark_debug, cpu_sched_debug, gui_rpc_debug
-Oct 02 08:31:02 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:02 [---] log flags: http_debug, http_xfer_debug, idle_detection_debug, network_status_debug
-Oct 02 08:31:02 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:02 [---] log flags: poll_debug, work_fetch_debug
…
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] Setting up GUI RPC socket
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] [gui_rpc] Local control only allowed
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] [gui_rpc] Listening on port 31416
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] Checking presence of 133 project files
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] [http] HTTP_OP::init_get(): https://boinc.berkeley.edu/project_list.php
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 Initialization completed
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] CLIENT_STATE::poll_slow_events() started
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] Running CPU benchmarks
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] CLIENT_STATE::start_cpu_benchmarks() finished
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] HOST_INFO::user_idle_time() started
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] xss_idle() started
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] X_display_values_initialize() started
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] X_display_values_initialize() finished
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] xss_idle() XScreenSaverAllocInfo() call
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] xss_idle() XScreenSaverAllocInfo() called
-Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: 02-Oct-2023 08:31:04 [---] xss_idle() XOpenDisplay(:0) call
 Oct 02 08:31:04 Sonne boinc[9863]: Authorization required, but no authorization protocol specified
…

How should the control flow evolve further here?

You can find all technical background information in the issues linked above.

How do you think about to compare software run time characteristics for the following code variant?

#if HAVE_XSS
// …
long xss_idle() {
#if 1
    msg_printf(NULL, MSG_INFO, "xss_idle() Skip detection");
    return true;
#else
    // …
    return idle_time;
#endif
}
#endif // HAVE_XSS

A corresponding test result looks promising.

Markus_Elfring@Sonne:/var/lib/boinc> /usr/local/bin/boinccmd --client_version
…
Client version: 7.25.0

Will any development ideas become more appealing (so that undesirable communication blockages will also be reconsidered accordingly)?

Apart from that, I don't really understand your questions.

I am curious how another clarification approach will evolve.