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

[Carsten Haitzler]

On Fri, 2 Oct 2020 15:18:42 -0400 Gene Heskett <gheskett at shentel.net> said:

I think your gripe is with xfce here. Perhaps with other DE's/WM's too - ymmv,
but they should all provide some option to not lock or blank.

I know enlightenment allows you to completely disable screen blanking or
dimming, separately enable/disable DPMS, configure a screen dim level (even for
desktop monitors) and locking of the screen on blank is a separate option that
can be on or off as desired so you can still allow it to dim and go black and
it'll quickly fade in on any wakeup without a login needed.. just clicky-clicky
in the GUI settings and it works. Perhaps trying another desktop will get you
better results?

If you or others close to you are writing an application that really wants to
force the screen to stay on and unblanked etc. ... the x xscreensaver extension
has a call to inhibit screen blanking. some media players use this when in
fullscreen mode to ensure the screen doesn't blank or lock. I know rage does
(well it asks the toolkit which then asks the extension). XScreenSaverSuspend()
is the function you want to do that. So maybe LinuxCNC can request this while
printing/milling/machining etc. ...

> 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>
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-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
Carsten Haitzler - raster at rasterman.com