[1363] in Release_7.7_team
We want to change Solaris 2.6 monitor power saving.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bill Cattey)
Fri Jul 17 15:45:21 1998
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:45:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Bill Cattey <wdc@MIT.EDU>
To: angelo@west.sun.com
Cc: release-team@MIT.EDU
Angelo:
We're about to go live site-wide with Solaris 2.6, and we've discovered
an annoyance with the Energy Star support that shuts off video monitors.
I remember in the 2.6 SSRT last year how pleased the Sun engineers were
about how much energy would be saved by this feature that powers down
monitors.
Well, our environment is a little different:
Back when a blank screen meant a broken monitor, MIT developed a
free-console display that would put up a logo, and the time of day, and
move it across the screen (to avoid buring it into the phosphors.) We
like this display, and have left it in our Solaris 2.6 based release.
This means that machines staying idle over night will never power down.
MIT does not have a problem with this.
Our problem is tha tthe only people who will get their monitors powered
down are users who step away from their desks for ten minutes. They
don't like it and they want us to turn it off.
Unfortunately, our preliminary investigation is that the only way to
disable the monitor power down is to disable the X screensaver with
"xset s off".
We like the screen saver. We want the screensaver. We just want it to
quit shutting off our monitors.
Is there some command we have missed that exerts this finer control?
If not, we want to formally request a Solaris enhancement. It should
never be a choice between no screensaver whatsoever, and one that
unconditionally kills power inconveniently.
-wdc
