Display Power Management Signaling
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DPMS (Display Power Management Signaling) is a technology that allows power saving behaviour of monitors when the computer is not in use.
Contents
Setting up DPMS in X
Add the following to your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
in the Monitor
section:
Option "DPMS" "true"
Add the following to the ServerLayout
section, change the times (in minutes) as necessary:
Option "StandbyTime" "10" Option "SuspendTime" "20" Option "OffTime" "30"
Note: If the "OffTime" option does not work replace it with the following, (change the "blanktime" to "0" to disable screen blanking)
Option "BlankTime" "30"
DPMS Interaction using xset
It is possible to turn off your monitor using the xset
tool.
xset dpms force standby
puts the screen(s) into standby,
xset dpms force suspend
makes them to suspend and
xset dpms force off
turns them off immediately. If you leave your computer, you don't need to wait for the timeout you set that the display turns off. Simply enfoce it by using the xset command.
Note that you may need to prefix the command with sleep 1;
for it to work correctly. For example,
sleep 1; xset dpms force off
You could also copy this script: Template:File
Make it executable (chmod u+x /usr/local/bin/display.sh) and just run display.sh off. For the latter to work you need to include /usr/local/bin into your path, otherwise you have to execute it with the whole path:
# With /usr/local/bin in your PATH display.sh suspend # Without /usr/local/bin in your PATH /usr/local/bin/display.sh standby
Disable DPMS and prevent screen from turning off (thanks damir)
Useful when watching movies or slideshows:
The first command turns off DPMS
xset -dpms
This one disables screen saver blanking:
xset s off