Xfce Forum

whereisnomad

Member

Registered: 2019-05-12

Posts: 5

Trying to Keep Screen Backlight OFF

Hi All,
Brand new both to Linux/xfce world and this forum.
Be gentle and use small words.

I'm trying to turn off my screen backlight and keep it off, but keep the LCD itself active.
I'm on an Acer Aspire One running Mint xfce.

Effectively, when I hit the Fn+f6 key, it does exactly what I want, but any trackpad/keyboard input wakes the screen up again.

I've tried using terminal to set brightness/backlight to 0, tried xbacklight (have since uninstalled it concerned its further confusing the OS), and a handful of other things but they all just "dim" the screen to a brightness of 0, which isn't the same as "off" achieved with the Fn+F6 that I'm after.

I've seen some threads here in related topics that discuss the possibility of the system being confused between power management and the intel settings, but this is a tad above my experience re: tracing down those dependencies. Also curious exactly the FnF6 shortcut does on a root level, wondering if I understood that, I might be able to logic my way to keeping it that way, but my dev skillz aren't there yet in either running the right log to see or coding that thing from happening.

Use-case, btw, is that i have a Pixel Qi screen, and want to keep it in reflective mode (think: epaper) while still using it. Again, Fn+F6 does exactly what I want but cant figure out a) how to force the backlight off in all situations or b) prevent trackpad/keyboard for from having any effect on BL settings.

Thanks for any/all assistance to this noob.

Last edited by whereisnomad (2019-05-12 18:48:07)

MrEen

Member

Registered: 2019-04-19

Posts: 295

Re: Trying to Keep Screen Backlight OFF

Hi whereisnomad, and welcome.

You should probably wait for someone to confirm, but this might accomplish what you're after:

xset -dpms

Then I think your function key combo won't be undone by other input. If I'm wrong, a reboot will return the state to normal.

whereisnomad

Member

Registered: 2019-05-12

Posts: 5

Re: Trying to Keep Screen Backlight OFF

Hi whereisnomad, and welcome.

You should probably wait for someone to confirm, but this might accomplish what you're after:

xset -dpms

Then I think your function key combo won't be undone by other input. If I'm wrong, a reboot will return the state to normal.

Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately didn't solve and had no APPARENT effect.

Incidentally, i HAD tried: <xset dpms force off> and not surprisingly, it turned my screen completely off (not just backlight) but it was reactivated by any input from keyboard or trackpad.

This makes me wonder if a) it is a power management setting elsewhere overriding it (because the input woke it in both the FnF6 AND dpms-force-off attempts) compounded by the curious "0-brigtness" not actually turning the brightness OFF.

Potential rabbit hole I'm going down but trying to think through it...

Thanks for the lean in and keep the ideas coming!