On 27 December 2013 23:10, Jamie Zawinski <j...@jwz.org> wrote: > No, xscreensaver should never be compiled with support for the > MIT-SCREEN-SAVER extension. It's crap and breaks everything. > > But now that I understand that you're talking not about xscreensaver > activation but about DPMS only, I know what the problem is, and it is, as far > as I know, impossible to fix portably. See the #if 0 block around line 348 of > driver/timers.c: > > /* This will (hopefully, supposedly) tell the server to re-set its > DPMS timer. Without this, the -deactivate clientmessage would > prevent xscreensaver from blanking, but would not prevent the > monitor from powering down. */ > #if 0 > /* #### With some servers, this causes the screen to flicker every > time a key is pressed! Ok, I surrender. I give up on ever > having DPMS work properly. > */ > > > So, X sucks and you are doomed. > > Workaround: disable DPMS globally. Just let the screen saver paint the screen > black instead of powering off the monitor. If you're using an LCD and not a > CRT the difference in power consumption will probably be negligible anyway.
The difference in light output between a black screen and powered off screen is not negligible. The backlight just leaks somehow. It is true that using Xss requires a fork to get a sane semantics but since xscreensaver-command is a short-lived process that should not be a problem if the extension is used. And since the daemon is contacted over X protocol anyway there is no reason it has to be done in the daemon itself. And if XResetScreenSaver works that's fine too. Mplayer seems to use it and it does not cause screen flicker. It did not work with my test script, however. Since it returns a value I would expect that the call is finished by the time it returns but it might need a XFlush. Thanks Michal -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
