Screen blanking occurring when computer is left inactive. TTY, not X11.

Ryokei · 10-26-2008, 09:02 PM

So simply, my Compaq laptop is plugged into an external monitor. I am running a fairly default Slackware 12.1 install, and if I leave the keyboard or mouse inactive for a period of time, the external monitor will stop displaying the terminal and just show black. The monitor isn't put into any sort of standby mode, it just displays black. With a tap on the keyboard, the screen returns. I never use X and any of the window managers, as all my work on this computer can be done in a TTY terminal.

However, if I've just got irssi running and I'm glancing at it from time to time, it's really annoying to have to reach for the keyboard and tap it to see my status window.

Anyone got any ideas? I've checked ACPI events, and they're all NULL.

bgeddy · 10-26-2008, 09:28 PM

This is from the startup script /etc/rc.d/rc.M :

Quote:

# Screen blanks after 15 minutes idle time, and powers down in one hour
# if the kernel supports APM or ACPI power management:
/bin/setterm -blank 15 -powersave powerdown -powerdown 60

You may have to change the script or perhaps overide the settings by calling setterm from your /etc/rc.d/rc.local without the parameters.

I've not tried either so you'll have to experiment.

T3slider · 10-26-2008, 10:12 PM

Take a look at `setterm` (see `man setterm`). I think the '-blank' option is what you want. In /etc/rc.d/rc.M, there is the following:

Code:

# Screen blanks after 15 minutes idle time, and powers down in one hour
# if the kernel supports APM or ACPI power management:
/bin/setterm -blank 15 -powersave powerdown -powerdown 60

You could probably just change that parameter -- but note that if you upgrade your system, rc.M will get overwritten (well, actually, it would put an rc.M.new file in place which you would have to merge). It may be easier to just add a new setterm command in /etc/rc.d/rc.local to override that line.

[edit]Woah, WAY off. I probably should have refreshed my page before posting. I should also learn to open fewer threads and do less at once...[/edit]

Ryokei · 10-27-2008, 03:13 AM

Great, thanks for the words of assistance. rc.M has been changed, with the script repeated in rc.local just in case I distro update and totally forget about it.

/bin/setterm -blank 15 -powersave off -powerdown 60
->
/bin/setterm -blank 0 -powersave off -powerdown 0

There wasn't anything about it in the Slackbook, which I referred to for the "generic noob help" which I kinda expected to encompass things like power management in a terminal.

Again, cheers. RTFM being executed too, for the background knowledge. :P