Stopping the kernel's internal screen blank

[Robert Nichols]

Jeff Vian wrote:
> On Sat, 2005-01-22 at 23:41 -0600, Robert Nichols wrote:
> 
>>What is the correct way to turn off the kernel's screen blanking?  This
>>is part of the VT driver and is totally independent of the X Window
>>System's screen blanking and screensaver, so don't tell me about "xset
>>dpms off" or the various xscreensaver options.  The only way I've found
>>to turn off the kernel's blanking is to log in on a virtual console and
>>run "setterm -powersave off".  If I forget to turn it off, the kernel
>>will shut off my monitor while I'm actively working because the VT
>>driver is unaware of keyboard and mouse acrivity that occurs in an X
>>Window session.
>>
>>Short of patching the kernel to disable that feature, is there a way to
>>disable it automatically when X is running?  It would be nice to leave
>>it active when X is not running, but I'd be happy just to get rid of it.
>>
> 
> Although it seems a bit of a hack, you could put the setterm line
> in /etc/rc.d/rc.local and it should do what you want. 

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work unless I'm actually logged in
on a virtual console.  I've tried

    setterm -t linux -powersave off </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>/dev/tty1

to no avail.  Yes, the command was executed with root privileges.  I've
even run strace on it, and the command is doing its thing.  It just
doesn't appear to affect anything.

--
Bob Nichols         rnichols42 at comcast.net