monitor backlight won't turn off, wrote a daemon to force it on / off

[dave selby]

2009/5/4 Mark Greenwood <fatgerman at ntlworld.com>:
> On Monday 04 May 2009 08:25:36 dave selby wrote:
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I have a system where the monitor will blank but absolutely will not turn off.
>>
>> I have checked xorg.conf for DPMS, tweaked configs and googled etc and
>> came to realize I am not alone.
>> I came across http://www.shallowsky.com/linux/x-screen-blanking.html
>> which shed some light but did not want to
>> use the suggested workaround so I have written 'backlight_daemon.py'
>>
>> It checks 'xset -q' every couple of seconds and if it finds that the
>> monitor should be off, it 'vbetool dpms off''s to
>> force the issue, reports what it is doing to syslog :)
>>
>> It needs to be run as root, I start it by adding
>>
>> @reboot /usr/local/bin/backlight_daemon.py
>>
>> to my roots crontab. Its easier than setting up a /etc/init.d/...
>>
>> Anyhow it solved my problem and I wanted to share it with you guys,
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Dave
>
> It may not be that complicated. I had a similar problem and found that I simply needed to be a member of the 'video' group.
>
> Mark

rofl, I will give it a go :)

Dave










>>
>>
>>
>>
>> #!/usr/bin/env python
>>
>> # Copyright 2008 David Selby dave6502<SPAM>@googlemail.com
>>
>> # backlight_daemon is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
>> # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
>> # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
>> # (at your option) any later version.
>>
>> # kmotion is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>> # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
>> # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
>> # GNU General Public License for more details.
>>
>> # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
>> # along with backlight_daemon. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
>>
>>
>> import os, sys, pwd, time, syslog
>> from subprocess import * # breaking habit of a lifetime !
>>
>>
>> def main():
>>     # the backlight daemon
>>     log_it('Starting ...')
>>     while True:
>>         user = find_user()
>>         check_change(user)
>>
>>
>> def find_user():
>>     # wait for a valid user who can 'xset -q -display:0.0', return that user
>>     while True:
>>         users = [i[0] for i in pwd.getpwall() if i[2] > 500 or i[2] == 0]
>>         for user in users:
>>             pipe = Popen(['sudo -u %s xset -q -display :0.0' % user],
>> shell=True, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, close_fds=True)
>>             if pipe.communicate()[1] == '':
>>                 log_it('Selected user \'%s\'' % user)
>>                 return user
>>         time.sleep(10)
>>
>>
>> def check_change(user):
>>     # check 'xset -q' and execute 'vbetool dpms on|off'
>>     monitor_on = False # system starting so monitor assumed to be off
>>     while True:
>>         pipe = Popen(['sudo -u %s xset -q -display :0.0' % user],
>> shell=True, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, close_fds=True)
>>         xset_q, xset_err = pipe.communicate()
>>         if xset_err != '':
>>             break # 'user' no longer valid
>>
>>         if monitor_on and xset_q.find('Monitor is Off') != -1:
>>             log_it('Forcing monitor backlight off')
>>             # sudo to set env variables for root in this shell
>>             Popen(['sudo vbetool dpms off'], shell=True, close_fds=True)
>>             monitor_on = False
>>
>>         if not monitor_on and xset_q.find('Monitor is On') != -1:
>>             log_it('Forcing monitor backlight on')
>>             # sudo to set env variables for root in this shell
>>             Popen(['sudo vbetool dpms on'], shell=True, close_fds=True)
>>             monitor_on = True
>>
>>         time.sleep(2)
>>
>>
>> def log_it(msg):
>>     # log 'msg' to syslog
>>     syslog.openlog('backlight_daemon', syslog.LOG_PID)
>>     syslog.syslog(msg)
>>     syslog.closelog()
>>
>>
>> main()
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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