☕ Insomnia

Keep your Linux computer awake, without forgetting about it.

Tools like Caffeine hide in the system tray, where it's easy to forget they're running. Insomnia takes the opposite approach: its own window, taskbar entry, bright colors.

• Blocks system suspend, and optionally screen blanking
• Optional time limit (30 min to 8 hours, or indefinitely)
• Status and remaining time shown in the taskbar title
• Colored window: bright when active, muted when inactive
• Single instance: launching it again brings the window to the front
• Locks are always released, even if the app crashes or gets killed

Python 3 with PyGObject and GTK 3, and systemd. These are installed by default on Linux Mint (tested on Cinnamon).

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin ~/.local/share/applications
cp insomnia ~/.local/bin/ && chmod +x ~/.local/bin/insomnia
cp insomnia.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/

Insomnia then shows up in the application menu under Accessories. It blocks sleep as soon as it starts.

Two mechanisms are used together:

• Gtk.Application.inhibit(), which goes through the session manager and is honored by the screensaver and the desktop power manager
• a systemd-inhibit lock, honored by logind

The logind lock is tied to the app's PID, so it can never outlive the app. You can check active locks with systemd-inhibit --list.

Closing the laptop lid still suspends the computer.

Window colors are set by the COLOR_* constants at the top of the insomnia script.

Do whatever the hell you want with it.