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  • blank idle system console

    From Mike Scott@21:1/5 to All on Sun Oct 16 12:15:40 2022
    I can't find an answer to this one on the web.

    I would like the system console to blank when idle (the usual state) to
    allow the connected monitor to go into standby.

    This is on a Pi4, and I see the console screen saver modules are not
    built anyway on this platform, but the newer vt console driver doesn't
    support them, and experiments on a virtual amd64 system have shown sc
    has other issues.

    I've tried running xdm in the faint hope that it might choose not to
    burn holes in the screen, but it seems I'm out of luck. If there's a configuration option, perhaps someone could let me know please, as I've
    not found one?

    The web shows that blanking the console seems to have been an issue for
    a long time. I'm guessing there is no solution.

    Thanks.

    --
    Mike Scott
    Harlow, England

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  • From Christian Weisgerber@21:1/5 to Mike Scott on Sun Oct 16 12:53:05 2022
    On 2022-10-16, Mike Scott <[email protected]d> wrote:

    This is on a Pi4, and I see the console screen saver modules are not
    built anyway on this platform, but the newer vt console driver doesn't support them, and experiments on a virtual amd64 system have shown sc
    has other issues.

    I've tried running xdm in the faint hope that it might choose not to
    burn holes in the screen, but it seems I'm out of luck.

    The X11 server (as started by xdm) _should_ do this by default.
    It certainly does here, and I have not explicitly configured it to
    do so--but that's on amd64 with Intel graphics, so it may depend
    on the video driver.

    What does "xset q" report? Does it show a DPMS section?

    ...
    DPMS (Energy Star):
    Standby: 600 Suspend: 600 Off: 600
    DPMS is Enabled
    Monitor is On

    --
    Christian "naddy" Weisgerber [email protected]

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  • From Mike Scott@21:1/5 to Christian Weisgerber on Tue Oct 18 07:44:41 2022
    On 16/10/2022 13:53, Christian Weisgerber wrote:
    On 2022-10-16, Mike Scott <[email protected]d> wrote:

    This is on a Pi4, and I see the console screen saver modules are not
    built anyway on this platform, but the newer vt console driver doesn't
    support them, and experiments on a virtual amd64 system have shown sc
    has other issues.

    I've tried running xdm in the faint hope that it might choose not to
    burn holes in the screen, but it seems I'm out of luck.

    The X11 server (as started by xdm) _should_ do this by default.
    It certainly does here, and I have not explicitly configured it to
    do so--but that's on amd64 with Intel graphics, so it may depend
    on the video driver.

    What does "xset q" report? Does it show a DPMS section?

    ...
    DPMS (Energy Star):
    Standby: 600 Suspend: 600 Off: 600
    DPMS is Enabled
    Monitor is On


    Useful thought, thank you.

    But I find that Xorg.log says dpms is loaded and initialized, yet xset
    -q says it's not available. Odd.

    I've tried raspbian, which is fine: xset -q shows dpms active, and it
    does appropriate things. So it's not a hardware issue (although I'm not
    clear of the full import of the Pi4's documented lack of full support
    for hdmi_blanking).

    Hmmm. Anyone got this working on a Pi4? (fbsd 13.1, btw)


    --
    Mike Scott
    Harlow, England

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Mike Scott@21:1/5 to Mike Scott on Wed Oct 19 16:54:35 2022
    On 18/10/2022 07:44, Mike Scott wrote:
    ....
    What does "xset q" report?  Does it show a DPMS section?

    ...
    DPMS (Energy Star):
       Standby: 600    Suspend: 600    Off: 600
       DPMS is Enabled
       Monitor is On


    Useful thought, thank you.

    But I find that Xorg.log says dpms is loaded and initialized, yet xset
    -q says it's not available. Odd.

    ....

    I still can't make this work.

    Xorg -configure runs through, finds scfb and modesetting drivers, says
    it's "falling back to old probe method" for each in turn, then announces
    "no devices to configure. Configuration failed".

    Yet a simple 'startx' does start an X session. Although with the DPMS issue.


    (As an a side - the Pi's config.txt needs disable_overscan set, or the
    display resolution is reduced. I've been through the raspbian config.txt
    to see if there's a clue why that should have DPMS work but fbsd not. No
    luck.)

    Anyone have a clue what going on please? Thanks.


    --
    Mike Scott
    Harlow, England

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