Arch Linux

Baka no Kami

Member

Registered: 2011-03-23

Posts: 2

[Solved] Turning off DPMS on an X install with no windows manager

I've got an old laptop that I turned into a picture frame, but I'm having some trouble with screen blanking.  I've only installed the bare basics that it needed to display pictures. Basically I put 'xinit feh' in rc.local, but there's no windows manager or anything other than the base X system installed.

I also thought it would be nice to have a webcam on it watching my front porch.  After some playing around I found that I can ssh into the frame and run "xinit /usr/bin/xawtv -f -remote -c /dev/video0 -- :1" and make the webcam start on top of the slideshow. Then when I drop the ssh connection the camera stops and the slideshow pops back up.

This is where I'm running into the problem.  On the base install with no xorg.conf file the slidshow starts, I can turn on the camera remotely, but the screen blanks after 15 minutes if I haven't done anything.

I tried this from the wiki

First, create a new config file, for example, /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf.

# nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf

Copy and paste the following code.

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "Monitor0"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier    "Device0"
    Driver        "vesa" #Choose the driver used for this monitor
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier    "Screen0"  #Collapse Monitor and Device section to Screen section
    Device        "Device0"
    Monitor       "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth  16 #Choose the depth (16||24)
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth     16
        Modes     "1024x768_75.00" #Choose the resolution
    EndSubSection
EndSection

...and added Option   "DPMS" "false" to the monitor section.  This worked in that the screen doesn't blank anymore, but the alternate X server crashes when I try and start the camera.  I also noticed that if I plug a keyboard locally into the frame I can't switch between terminals anymore (or at least can't see that it's switching)

At another point the wiki mentioned only having the monitor section in the 10-monitor.conf file and using Identifier "<default monitor>".  I tried that as well but X seemed to just ignore the DPMS setting when I did. I was able to turn the camera on again, but the frame still blanks after 15 minutes.

Last edited by Baka no Kami (2011-04-13 02:51:36)

Baka no Kami

Member

Registered: 2011-03-23

Posts: 2

Re: [Solved] Turning off DPMS on an X install with no windows manager

I finally found something that works. I put the following in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-monitor.conf :

Section "ServerFlags"
        Option          "BlankTime"     "0"
        Option          "StandbyTime"   "0"
        Option          "SuspendTime"   "0"
        Option          "OffTime"       "0"
EndSection

It doesn't turn off DPMS, but it keeps the screen from blanking anymore, and still let's me switch to the webcam.