XFCE Screensaver and Power Management?
 

OK, feeling kind of dumb.

I got fed up with KDE 4.6.5 crashing all the time and moved to XFCE. Can't figure out in the documentation how in blazes to set the screen save (or even wake the blasted thing up) and the display power management. Been looking at everything I can find and there doesn't seem to be anything. I don't want a graphic log in, I just want the thing to go dark and shut down the display so I can wake it up (moving the mouse didn't do it, and it kept the power on).

While I'm at it, can the blasted thing turn the Num Lock somehow or other?

Sheesh.

xfce4-power-manager and xnumlock?

cheers,

On Xfce 4.6.1 ...

Xfce menu -> Settings -> Screensaver -> Display modes

Blank After: <whatever you want>
Lock Screen After: cleared

I'm getting blinder by the day -- looked through that settings thing and totally missed the word "screensaver." Duh.

Still can't find numlock anywhere but...

It's generally not a good idea to switch environments in the middle of a project, but I just got so fed up with KDE crashing (and didn't want to download the updated versions). Up against the wall ain't a good time to migrate.

Thanks.

Some techniques on the ArchWIKI. Not for Xfce but for X so hopefully that will do what you want.

There is a number lock plug-in that works with Xfce 4.8, but, not, very unfortunately, with 4.6.2.

http://goodies.xfce.org/projects/pan...kbdleds-plugin


There is also, http://slackbuilds.org/repository/13...stem/numlockx/

Holy Toot! I gotta punch a button! Golly, gee, Batman, how 1970's. :D

OK, no problem, just gotta remember to make that little green light come on.

Thanks

There is also Settings -> Session and Startup where you can define autostarted applications (it may help with numlock if there is a simple command to turn it on).

Thanks -- I tried that with the package from Slackbuilds.org and it didn't like it.

Won't hurt a bit to simply punch the NumLock key for now.

When running Xfce 4.8, I found if I left the number lock button "on" then it automatically
was turned on each time I started Xfce 4.8. It might of had some to do with putting a
check mark next to "Save session for future logins" on the logout splash screen, but I really
don't know.

If you are interested in solving this problem, please give detail on "didn't like it" (running the same command you entered into the autostart at the command line in a GUI terminal emulator).

If you are not interested then "happy punching" :D

"Didn't Like It:" startx failed (and, no, I don't remember the message, alas); I did add the start-ups suggesting the package README from SlackBuilds.org.

I'm in the middle of a big project and, honestly, I just don't have time right now to chase it down. As indicated by cwizadrone, once on it does automagically come back on when XGCE is restarted (yup, the "save session"). I'll try to get back to it when the dust settles.

I would be interested to know if you encounter any video problems with Xfce 4.8x.
Thanks.
:hattip:

Yet another option (you have to love desktop gnu) The dpms is also an option if you only want the monitor to power off. You could do that in stead of running the screensaver. You can do it on the fly, see 'xset --help' for options or it can be activated in the xorg.conf.d files.

One of the things I've learned to avoid is fancy-schmancy video cards -- my only experience with them has been a few ATI/AMD cards that came with various boxes and much of that experience has been... frustrating, shall we say. So the last couple of boxes bought have been "stock Intel graphics;" I don't do games, I don't do movies, I don't give a hoot as long as the image is viewable. The manufacturers support Microsoft 'case that's where their money is and the rest of us can wait, roll our own or use AMD/ATI proprietary drivers (and that's nice of them to have offered those for free and I don't give another hoot if they are proprietary). I care a lot more about things being stable and working than I do about hairy-edge technology that I have to fiddle with more than once so I can use the blasted thing to do what I need done.

I switched to XFCE simply because KDE 4.6 (that I got from AlienBob, thank you, AlienBob, and installed so that one application that I care about would work when it was upgraded and required a "feature" that wasn't in the stable release that came with Slackware 13.37) and it crashed frequently simply from drawing the mouse down to the task bar or if the wind blew from the wrong direction. I was in the middle of setting up QuickBooks in VirtualBox and those little crashes played hell with Win7 and QuickBooks but the same sort of thing happened with no rhyme or reason just doing work with Linux-only applications. Sheesh.

And, yeah, I could have downloaded and installed the newer, more stable (maybe) KDE versions and tried that; I live in the boonies, I've got HughesNet (satellite service) and I didn't have the hours it would have taken to do do that (again). I may go back to KDE when the next stable Slackware release comes but, nope, not now.

XFCE, at least version 4.6.x that comes with Slackware 13.37, isn't quite up to snuff with KDE. It's OK, but just not quite there yet -- and I don't mean fancy-schmany stuff, just the relatively simple things like power management on the KDE system menu. I did get it working so that the screen saver comes on after idle time then the display turns off sometime later (which is, ya know, what you want it do) and then wakes up with a mouse wiggle. I dug in the X books and the Xorg book to figure some things out and got 'er close the way I want 'er to work (lordy, have I forgotten more stuff that I ever really knew).

And I kind of think that XFCE holds promise -- just as long as it doesn't get so bloated that it becomes unusable (like, uh, KDE and GNOME, methinks maybe?). I just don't have the time right now to really dig in and figure out all the twists and turns; I've gotten spoiled rotten by bloat.

Anyway, onward and upward.

Interesting. If you are running Xfce 4.6.2 you shouldn't have any video problems, but I somehow got the impression you were using version 4.8.x.
You were able to get that keyboard light plug-in to work with 4.6.2 ?

As to video cards, use Nvidia if you can. As I've said before, I used ATi cards for over 20 years, but when the last one died (actually the fan on the card died and replacing just the fan is next to impossible) about 1 or 1 1/2 years ago, the only thing the local computer store had in stock were Nvidia based cards. Bought one and it has been the best video card I've owned to date. Installed the Nvidia driver that came with it and it worked right out of the box, no fuss, no muss. No time spent trying to "properly" configure the xorg.confg file, etc. Just plain works. I won't be buying anything but Nvidia in the future.