Ubuntu Desktop lacks a typing break/anti-RSI software

[Rory McCann]

I occasionally suffer from RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) in my wrists & arms. I enabled the typing break in Gnome before which was a godsend, and helped a lot.

I recently upgraded to 11.10 and found that there was no typing break feature in Unity, but that also the typing break has been removed from 'gnome shell'. There is no built in option for a typing break. There appear to be several 3rd party typing break programmes, but some are not available for ubuntu. There's a gnome programme called drwright (apparently), but it's not packaged for ubuntu, there's 'workrave', but that's not packaged/installable for 11.10. Right now I'm trailing a KDE application (rsibreak), but it has a bad UI, and does not properly lock the screen aswell, so is a step down.

NB: It is also a requirement under EU law that workers be able to take regular breaks if the use a visual display unit. This might make stock Ubuntu unsuitable to be used in workplaces. e.g. Sec 72 of Statutory Instrument 299 of 2007 of Irish law (cf. http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2007/en/si/0299.html#article72 )

( This is mostly a copy of previously reported bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/883228 incorrectly reported against unity )

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: ubuntu-desktop 1.245
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic-pae 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Oct 31 18:52:38 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_IE:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_IE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubuntu-meta
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-25 (5 days ago)

[Rory McCann (rorymcc)]

I have tried the rsibreak package, which is a KDE based application for, obviously, taking RSI breaks. However it seems to be fatally flawed for unity, as it often doesn't work. cf. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rsibreak/+bug/886874

[Oleksandr Basii (okolobasii)]

my idea is to convert drwright rpm (at http://pkgs.org/download/drwright) to deb. For example, my way was:

sudo apt-get install alien
sudo alien -c drwright-3.2.2-1.fc17.i686.rpm
sudo dpkg -i drwright_3.2.2-2_i386.deb

Once you install it, typing breaks are configurable via the System Settings menu.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.