GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 324419
gnome-screensaver doesn't turn off lcd backlight
Last modified: 2006-04-29 23:43:18 UTC
Please describe the problem: My iBook now has support in HAL with a patch to set the brightness of the backlight, and switch it off/on. Even though - gnome-screensaver just blanks the screen without switching off the backlight. Steps to reproduce: Actual results: Expected results: Does this happen every time? Other information:
I think Richard has a solution for this in gnome-power-manager.
Shouldn't DPMS work for a powerMac? I know you can turn off the LCD with an ioctl, but I figured g-s and DPMS should just work, no?
I had filed a corresponding bug report almost 3 months ago at: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=169475 "gnome-screensaver" simply disables "DPMS". It does not offer the possibility of changing the corresponding settings. Even modifications via "gconf-editor" are not honoured. When I set the "suspend" delay to 10 min, it gets always reset to 60 min. Querying "DPMS" functionality via "xset -q" reveals that once "gnome-screensaver" has set in, "DPMS" gets disabled which can be checked after returning to the user's desktop. This bug makes "gnome-screensaver" essentially useless. Interestingly, "gnome-screensaver" does not require the presence of "gnome-power-manager" - at least in the case of Fedora Core rawhide. Moreover, "gnome-power-manager" does not seem to exhibit appropriate parameters to control "gnome-screensaver". I don't understand comment #1 in this repsect. Last point: is there a way to bind in "rss-glx" screensavers a it is the case for "xscreensaver" once they are installed? Thanks!
William, I think you agree with me here, DPMS dbus methods belong in g-p-m rather than g-s. The only time g-s every needs to control DPMS is when the user has selected no screensaver, and even that could be controlled by g-p-m in a powersaving role. I depends on whether you want to "depend" on g-p-m for DPMS functionality. Is that the course of action we should take?
Sounds good. Actually, the case for when the screensaver is disabled, or for that matter not running at all, is another good reason why this should be moved into g-p-m. I don't have any problem depending on g-p-m as long as you are committed to getting it into GNOME 2.14 :) Might be nice to support the non-HAL case too as we discussed. Probably best to do the move after the holidays.
Seeing as feature freeze is coming soon, don't be too hasty ripping out the dpms code from g-s, as g-p-m may well not be ready in the eyes of the release team. Especially as the code is churning lots now.
g-p-m CVS now has simple DPMS support, if you could please give it a go and tell me how you get on. You'll also need CVS gnome-screensaver.
Current Fedora/rawhide provides "gnome-power-manager-0.3.3-0.cvs.20060106" and "gnome-screensaver-0.0.23-3". As a matter of fact, I had already noticed that "g-p-m" now (?) offers the possibility to set the display suspend delay. It correctly sets the "dpms_suspend" of "g-s" which used to have a value of 60 minutes regardless of changing it by means of "gconf-editor". However, there is no possibility to set the 2 remaining values "dpms_standby" and "dpms_off" too. Consequently, their values remain unaffected. Anyway, the display actually goes to power saving mode after a while which is a major improvement. "xset -q" still shows that "DPMS" is disabled but I guess that's ok since "g-s" and "g-p-m" seem to take over control in this respect. Im am still puzzled though that "g-s" does not require "g-p-m" to be installed because it does not offer full functionality without the latter. Guess that's a Red Hat bug.
There's lots of work going on behind the scenes with g-p-m and g-s, and how the screen is managed. If you take a peek at the current g-p-m CVS, you'll see the work we are doing. g-s CVS requires g-p-m CVS for the DPMS stuff.
This works really well for me on my iBook and Toshiba laptop now, using both HEAD and 2-14 branches. Please re-open if reqd.