Prevent the screen from going blank
- Login o registrati per inviare commenti
I am a translator!
I run Trisquel mini on a Dell Latitude E4310. It is used as photo frame, running the feh command as a user service. However, the laptop screen regularly goes to sleep, which is not what I want. Looking at the menus, I see nothing related to screen saver or power settings, so I don't know to prevent the screen from going blank.
Trisquel Mini does not ship with a default screensaver or screenlocker, but I have been using light-locker, which also installs a simple GUI light-locker-settings that will show up in the Preferences menu.
EDIT: I just noticed that MATE Power Manager is already installed on Mini, but will not show up in the menu because its .desktop file in /usr/share/applications has "OnlyShowIn=MATE;". So you may want to simply comment that line out and launch it from the menu, if you do not need a screen locker.
I am a translator!
Thanks for the advice. Actually, MATE power manager is not installed on that computer.
Searching more, I found the xset command. "xset q" shows the that there is a screensaver function with a timeout set to 600s. After running "xset s off", the timeout is set to 0. I also saw things about dpms. Maybe it is about external monitor only, I am not sure. I have set if off in case. This computer is at my mother's place (I access it remotely). I'll ask if the display remains on. Actually, so far, it wasn't going blank after 600s always, so perhaps this is not what controls this.
On this Trisquel 11 Mini system, the built-in screen is indeed set to turn blank after 10 min of "inactivity". Maybe feh is set to prevent this? There is a different value set for sending the system into sleep mode (default 30 min).
I am a translator!
Not sure how to check about feh.
With respect to the "xset s off" and "xset -dpms" command, where could I put them so that they are always run when the session opens? This is LXDE, so I guess something that is run when the LXDE session starts would be fine.
I would try creating a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart. The LXDE wiki was offline when I tried to look it up, but the content should look like that:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=xset -dpms
I am a translator!
Ok, I did that (also for "xset s off"). I'll check after the next reboot.
Besides, I can now confirm that the two xset commands I mentioned do keep the screen on.
It seems to be working here, according to the output of xset q. You can also add a "Name" parameter that will be displayed in the Automatically Started Applications list in Desktop Session Settings. So you can simply check/uncheck it there according to your future needs:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=Feh Power Settings
Type=Application
Exec=xset s off -dpms
There may be another path through editing ~/.config/lxsession/Trisquel-mini/autostart and appending the relevant commands preceded by "@" - but I have not tested it:
@xset s off -dpms
You could create an .xinitrc and log into LXDE with the startx command instead of continuing to use a [bloated] graphical login manager. Then you could add lots of autostart programs as one line each in your .xinitrc
Otherwise referred to as starting your desktop environment "the right way".
I am a translator!
I could do what you suggest but I prefer to avoid any unnecessary deviation from the default settings as they work well enough with minor adjustments.
I have no physical access to the computer, so adjusting anything might be rather difficult. Even when the x server is working, I have no way to know whether the screen is blank or not (gvncviewer shows me the screen regardless whether the physical screen is blank or not).