Feature request, but must be universallly accepted by ALL blanker authors

Fri Oct 2 22:23:30 UTC 2020

On Friday 02 October 2020 15:54:30 Dan Arena wrote:

> Good afternoon Gene,
>
> I am not sure about xfce, I suspect they do have settings in their GUI
> settings manager to adjust what you want, but seeing as this is the
> xorg mailing list I will tell you how I do it when running just X with
> a simple window manager. This is probably what you want. I put these
> lines into my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file on an appliance-like system for
> non-linux users. The first two settings DontVTSwitch and DontZap
> aren't actually related to "screen blanking", they prevent you from
> using ctrl+alt+f1 and ctrl+alt+backspace. You can delete them if you
> want.
>
> Section "ServerFlags"
>     Option "DontVTSwitch" "on"
>     Option "DontZap"  "on"
>     Option "BlankTime" "0"
>     Option "StandbyTime" "0"
>     Option "SuspendTime" "0"
>     Option "OffTime" "0"
> EndSection
>
>
> Anyways, thanks for the entertaining email.

I didn't really intend for it to be entertaining. My machines are limited 
to a couple horsepower, but there are folks on that mailing list with 
50+ horsepower spindle motors, so I was serious in my use of maimed or 
killed.

The above I assume is best tested after a reboot? But I don't see an 
xorg.conf file in the /etc/X11 directory. Debian 10, I have this:
gene at lathe:/etc/X11$ ls -l
total 76
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 app-defaults
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    18 Sep  7 06:40 default-display-manager
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 fonts
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17394 Nov 23  2016 rgb.txt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 xinit
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Feb 11  2019 xkb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   709 Nov 23  2016 Xreset
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 Xreset.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 Xresources
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  3517 Nov 23  2016 Xsession
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 16:07 Xsession.d
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   265 Nov 23  2016 Xsession.options
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  4096 Sep 29 15:06 xsm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    13 Dec  5  2016 XvMCConfig
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   630 Sep  7 06:40 Xwrapper.config

> Happy Friday!

Day of the week is only important if its sunday as I'm a DM-II, and I 
shoot myself with bidureon on Sundays, and Wednesdays are trash 
collection pickups about dawn on Thursdays. Being retired for 17+ years, 
the rest of the week is a blur. Somewhat explainable by the fact I'll be 
86 yo by the time the next week gets started good. :)  And I don't see a 
good candidate in the list above.

I wonder what would happen if I just create that file and reboot?, 
done. /var/log/Xorg.0.log exists, and it must have been read as all that 
stuff is 0 in the Xorg.0.log. htop says lightdm-greeter is running for 
the initial login. zero X showing in htop.  Go up the hill and see since 
the monitor is in fact turned off till I turn it on. Which I did. Didn't 
bither it a bot. 11 minutes later I'm looking at a color cycling screen, 
and when I move the mouse, I'm looking at the lightdm-greeter login 
requester.

Next?  Or was that our best shot?

Thanks Dan A.

> -Dan
>
> On Fri, Oct 2, 2020 at 3:30 PM Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> 
wrote:
> > Greetings x-people;
> >
> > The LinuxCNC people have just brought it up from Debian wheezy to
> > buster for a base install.
> >
> > But the security paranoia is going to get someone maimed or killed.
> >
> > Someone has decreed that the screen blanker must be subject to a new
> > login before anything can be done about a runaway machine with
> > enough horsepower at its disposal to kill.
> >
> > I have now been 3 days looking for a way to disable this blanker,
> > trying several methods by way of xset, only to find 15 minutes later
> > that its been undone and the blanker kicks in regardless.
> >
> > So I am proposing that an env variable be named an agreed upon name,
> > and that its presence totally disables any and ALL screen blanker's
> > regardless of whose desktop of the day is installed.  We can
> > incorporate the setting of this, on launching LinuxCNC, and
> > unsetting it when LinuxCNC is being shut down.
> >
> > If you agree that safety overrides paranoia, please consider this as
> > part of the supplied X11 implementations.
> >
> > In the meantime, since xset seems powerless to disable it, can
> > someone tell me how, in xfce4, to disable it. Haveing it kick in in
> > 10 minutes, while the machine is carving a part, and a miss-command
> > does something wrong that needs to be stopped as quickly as
> > possible, having a locked screen requiring a login via a swarf
> > covering equipt keyboard is simply dangerous to both the operator
> > and the machine.  So I'm asking how do I get rid of it, totally.  We
> > can operate a monitors power switch if we are done for the day, but
> > we can't tolerate anything getting in the way of controlling that
> > runaway machine with one keystroke during the day.
> >
> > Please advise.  And thank you.
> >
> > Cheers, Gene Heskett
> > --
> > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> >  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> > -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> > If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law
> > respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis
> > Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> > _______________________________________________
> > xorg at lists.x.org: X.Org support
> > Archives: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg
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> > Your subscription address: %(user_address)s

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>