Unable to get screensaver working.

NOYB

Now that you got it working, figured it was something I'd like to give a try.

I'm running an old DELL Inspiron 5100 notebook and in the case of an extended power outage that drains the battery the BIOS (RTC) is set to wake the computer once a day so the machine will eventually boot up again after power is restored.

However this seems to only work if the screen is up (not closed). So thought it would be nice to blank the screen.

It does blank the screen so that is nice, however it does not turn off the backlight. That's a big energy consumer, so not quite so green.

Also it blanks the screen for about the middle half of boot up. That could be real problem if it should hang during boot up with the screen blank.

Thanks for getting this working and sharing.


Put i386 version of green_saver.ko in /boot/modules/
Added green_saver_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf.local
Added <shellcmd>vidcontrol -t 60</shellcmd> at end of config system section
rebooted

stephenw10

Try using <afterbootupshellcmd>instead.

Steve</afterbootupshellcmd>

NOYB

Nice thought, but it is blanking before it gets to the pfSense load.

Seems to be blanking upon loading the green_saver_load module in /boot/loader.conf.local.

jimp

Instead of putting that in loader.conf.local you could use the shell command tag to kldload it and then use vidcontrol.

NOYB

That works. :) Thanks.

Now if could just turn off the backlight.

NOYB

Loading green_saver.ko and configuring with vidcontrol with the afterbootupshellcmd and getting the following message. It does clear the screen though.

vidcontrol: getting active vty: Inappropriate ioctl for device'

Details:

/cf/conf/config.xml
<afterbootupshellcmd>/var/After_Bootup_Shell_Cmds.sh</afterbootupshellcmd>

/var/After_Bootup_Shell_Commands.sh
#!/bin/sh

After Bootup Shell Commands Script

kldload -v green_saver.ko;
vidcontrol -t 60

Log Output
php: : The command 'kldload -v green_saver.ko; vidcontrol -t 60' returned exit code '1', the output was 'Loaded green_saver.ko, id=2
vidcontrol: getting active vty: Inappropriate ioctl for device'