Laptop cover switch in FC5

[Dan]

Michael H. Warfield wrote:
> Hey Dan,
>
> On Sun, 2006-04-09 at 04:15 -0400, Dan wrote:
>   
>> Michael H. Warfield wrote:
>>     
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> 	There has been a bit of a change between FC4 and FC5 that has bit me.
>>>
>>> 	I have a Dell Laptop that I'm often using with an external monitor.
>>> I've used this with "clone" mode and "dual head mode" and "xinerama" at
>>> different times.  Under FC4, I would normally just close the laptop
>>> screen when hooked to the external monitor and work on that monitor.  I
>>> found that in FC5, as soon as it hits the cover switch the laptop
>>> activates the screen saver.  I think in FC4 it merely executed a "screen
>>> off" for the internal screen which turned off the laptop screen and left
>>> the external screen alone.  FC5 now results in both screens blanked
>>> until I open the laptop again and enter the password into the
>>> screensaver.
>>>
>>> 	Anyone have any idea how to get the old behavior back?  I can't find
>>> the "hook" that tells it how to behave.
>>>
>>> 	Mike
>>>   
>>>       
>> I don't think it's a difference in how FC4 handled the external monitor; 
>> the difference is that in FC5, the kernel has the framework for the 
>> suspend and hibernate operations, so power management is implemented in 
>> a much more useful fashion. You can look through gnome-power-manager 
>> (the preferences for the battery icon in the tray) and see if there is 
>> an option to make the screen not go blank immediately when the lid is 
>> closed.
>>     
>
> 	Great...  Thanks!  You pointed me in the correct direction to look.
>
> 	Unfortunately, there seems to be no option in gnome-power-manager to
> NOT blank the screen (or just blank the internal screen or turn off the
> backlight or run any sort of manual script like we use to do).  So
> that's just flat out more lost functionality which we had using acpi
> events and actions under FC4 and earlir.  Plus, when it blanks the
> internal screen, it blanks the external screen as well.  That's got to
> be considered a bug.  What would the lid switch have to do with an
> external monitor.  It also triggers the screensaver, if the screensaver
> is enabled, but that's easy enough to deal with by just disabling that.
>
> 	But that seems to be just the first bug.  Running that one down, I
> found the explanation to a much worse bug.  One of the things I commonly
> have been doing daily is to, at my desk, close the lid on my running
> laptop, unplug it from the network and external monitor, walk into a
> conference room from my desk for a daily conference call, and then open
> the lid and plug in a network cable there.  Then I run on battery for
> the hour of the call and reverse the process back to my desk.  I noticed
> that when I do that under FC5, the laptop is dead as a doornail.  I have
> to do a hard power off to recover it.  Ever since upgrading to FC5, I
> have to walk around with the laptop cover open if it's powered on.  That
> sucks.
>
> 	So tracking this down, I came to discover that what is happening seems
> to be gnome-power-(mis)manager getting seriously dicked up or getting
> the machine state dicked up.  When I close the cover under AC power,
> gnome-power-manager blanks the screenS.  When I unplug the AC power,
> gnome-power-manager goes to suspend to ram.  When I open the cover, the
> laptop comes out of suspend (power indicator indicates running) but
> never reactivates the screen and doesn't respond to the keyboard.  I can
> manually suspend to ram and then close the cover and open the cover and
> it recovers just fine.  I guess by manually suspending it, I never give
> gnome-power-manager the opportunity to commit random acts of terrorism
> when the lid and power state change ina way it wasn't prepared to
> handle.  It just seems to be this thing with gnome-power-manager
> blanking the screen, then suspending to ram, that leaves the machine in
> a state that can not recover when the lid opens back up.
>
> 	Setting the "running on battery" setting to "blanks screen" instead of
> "suspend" works around THAT problem very nicely.  I didn't want it
> suspending when I close the lid anyways (which is usually just to reach
> for something) and when I want it suspended or hibernated, I can suspend
> or hibernate it from the panel, just fine.  So, that's progress at
> least.  I can close the cover when I walk between my desk and my
> conference room once again.
>
> 	I liked it MUCH better when the battery applet was just a battery
> applet and didn't try to do things I really didn't want it doing.  I'd
> like to just KILL the gnome-power-manager, but I want the battery
> applet.  Sigh...
>
>   
>> -Dan
>>     
>
> 	Guess I'm off to file a couple of bugzilla reports on
> gnome-power-manager...  Two bugs plus lost functionality.  Par for da
> course...
>
> 	Mike
>   
I've only had a problem with gnome-power-manager trying to put the 
display to "sleep"; whenever it does that, it's irrecoverable no matter 
what. Suspend and hibernate work about 99% of the time though.
-Dan