Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: tip: disable auto screen blanking on Doremi server

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-24-2016, 03:27 PM:

Most (all?) Doremi servers will automatically blank the screen after fifteen minutes of inactivity. This is annoying.

There are two ways around this, at least on version 2.6.4 (which is what I used to verify them):

Way #1:

select menu->system->terminal

in the terminal, type the following two lines, hitting return after each one:

xset s off
xset -dpms

Any user can do this easily, but it will not persist across system reboots. It is rather fool-proof and will not damage the system in any way.

Way #2:

This method will persist across reboots, but requires the root password (readily available, but I will not post it here) and some knowledge of Linux and the vi text editor. Note that this is potentially dangerous and can possibly screw up the operating system if not done correctly.

select menu->system->terminal

In the terminal, type

su

and hit return. Then, type in the root password when prompted.

Then, remount the root partition as read-write; type

mount -o rw,remount /

cd /etc/X11

cp xorg.conf xorg.conf.old

vi xorg.conf

Search for the line that says

Option "OffTime" "15"

and change the "15" to "0"; do _not_ change anything else in that file.

Quit and save the file.

edit: method #2 requires a reboot in order to take effect

[ 01-25-2016, 05:43 AM: Message edited by: Scott Norwood ]

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 01-24-2016, 04:30 PM:

vi? is there no emacs?

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-24-2016, 06:20 PM:

emacs doesn't come with it. You can use ed, ex, or (if you must) nano, though.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 01-24-2016, 07:15 PM:

Why can't it just be a selectable setting.

Posted by Marco Giustini (Member # 4544) on 01-25-2016, 03:36 AM:

Thanks Dave,

very useful!

Posted by Ian Freer (Member # 1940) on 01-25-2016, 05:10 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Most (all?) Doremi servers will automatically blank the screen after fifteen minutes of inactivity. This is annoying.

Conversely, I wish GDC offered this as an option! Anyone got any ideas?

I agree in some situations the auto-screensaver is annoying, but in a multiplex where there is nobody around to look at and interact with the VGA screens I wish they would turn off to save the backlight life and also keep extraneous light down in the projection room...

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-25-2016, 12:07 PM:

You can always push the power button on the monitor to turn it off when it's not required.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 01-25-2016, 01:27 PM:

Possibly a bit obtuse.
Using vi to edit one line in a config file is fine, but most people who aren't familiar with it will have a heck of a time figuring out how to do that and save/exit. The learning curve for vi is quite steep.
Using emacs would only be less fun. It is much more powerful than vi and possibly harder to learn well.
Doremi includes nano which is more than powerful enough to change a "15" to a "0" and has a help area with enough information for most users to get by. It gets the cold shoulder from experienced Linux/Unix users partly because it's a simplified editor unworthy of a reaL programmer - and partly because it's easy to use without the arcane knowledge and skills that a BOFH holds dear.
The biggest problem with any of these and a Doremi server is the lack of control keys on the default onscreen keyboard. The "legacy keyboard" has those but it must be focused on the editor window to do anything in it.
FTPing the file out, editing it with a local text editor (even Windows Notepad will do), and then FTPing it back in is usually easiest. I'm not sure that any FTP login can access this folder, though.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-25-2016, 02:15 PM:

If you're editing a Unix/Linux configuration file with a Windows text editor, be sure that your text editor doesn't magically change the line endings or bad things can happen. Windows uses CR+LF and Linux and friends use LF.

There are numerous little utility programs to fix this (and vim can fix it for you too) but if you need to use a Windows text editor to edit a Linux configuration file then that's probably irrelevant to you. But do note that bad things can happen if you try to use a DOS/Windows formatted configuration file on a Unix system. If you edit the file and the application suddenly explodes, that's likely the reason.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 01-25-2016, 05:28 PM:

What Frank said about LF vs. CR/LF line endings.

nano does work, but it can munge configuration files easily by joining lines that should not be joined. In any case, I would tend to suggest that anyone who is not minimally comfortable with standard Unix utilities probably should not be making unsupported changes to the operating system on something that is intended to be an "appliance" with "no user serviceable parts inside." That is why I suggested the first method, which is very safe for anyone to use.