How to prevent screen power management from activating?

Question

I am using Awesome WM, and I use xscreensaver to lock the screen if I'm away for a certain amount of time. I also enabled screen power management in the xscreensaver configuration to turn off the monitor after some time. I want to implement a "persentation mode", which disables these. I can disable screen locking by calling xscreensaver-command -deactivate periodically. However, it doesn't stop the screen from going idle. I tried blocking idle in systemd-inhibit, but that doesn't help either.

Is there any way to temporarily disable screen power management in xscreensaver? Or, alternatively, is there any alternative screen locker / power management tool that allows locking the screen, turning off the screen, and temporarily disabling itself from command line?

ploth · Accepted Answer · 2018-01-09T16:38:06.850

1

It's hard to tell what exactly turns off your screen. You can give xset a try. You can control the screensaver (screen going black after some while) with it. For example xset s off.

From man xset:

For screen-saver control:
 s [timeout [cycle]]  s default    s on
 s blank              s noblank    s off
 s expose             s noexpose
 s activate           s reset

For screen locking I love to use slock.

EDIT: Slock doen't have a auto lock capability. You need a tool (for example xautolock) which watches your X and calls slock.

xautolock -time 2 -locker slock

edited Jan 09 '18 at 16:38

answered Jan 09 '18 at 12:29

ploth

435
8
16

How do you schedule slock to be run after certain amount of inactivity? – petersohn Jan 09 '18 at 13:28
Slock doen't have that capability. You need a tool (for example `xautolock`) which watches your X and calls slock. ```xautolock -time 2 -locker slock``` – ploth Jan 09 '18 at 16:35
This one requires some workarounds too, but it works. – petersohn Jan 16 '18 at 14:59

How to prevent screen power management from activating?

1 Answers1