Comment 26 for bug 604635

The Rhythmbox plugin works like it currently does because the two relevant inhibit flags that gnome-session provides are 'suspend' and 'idle'. 'Suspend' (as far as I know) inhibits all suspend operations, including user-initiated ones such as closing the laptop lid. WIth the older version of the plugin, using the gnome-power-manager dbus interface, we had reports of users almost frying their laptops because they assumed closing the lid would cause it to suspend, but the Rhythmbox plugin inhibited it, so placing it in an enclosed space caused it to overheat.

'Idle' only inhibits events that occur due to the machine being idle, which unfortunately for us includes screensaver and DPMS standby as well as suspending the machine. I figured this was the safer choice.

If there was an 'idle suspend' inhibit flag I'd certainly switch to it, but I don't seem to have done anything about asking for one yet..