Debian – System-wide power management policy on debian-based distros

debiangdmpower-managementsuspend

I would like to put idle machines in our lab (running Mint Debian edition) on standby after a timeout. I have tried pm-suspend and it puts the machines on standby and wakes up fine.

Does anybody know how to set a system-wide power policy that will be in force when no user is logged in? I've tried packages like laptop-mode-tools but it doesn't offer a suspend timeout.

Ideally this should be completely independent of desktop environment. The only solution I found by googling is to hack a GDM logout hook with xautolock calling pm-suspend after a timeout.

Best Answer

If you really don't care about people connected via ssh or similar, just check the number of interrupts genereated by the keyboard. On my PC this is in /proc/interrupts as i8042. I think you'll have some more complex workflow if you have an USB keyboard.

In order to check if anyone is still connected with a window manager, just check if /usr/bin/Xorg is running, without counting any DM login screen.

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Linux – Display power management in console

You can change that with setterm -blank X (X is the number of minutes). From man setterm:

-blank [0-60|force|poke] (virtual consoles only)
       Sets the interval of inactivity, in minutes,  after  which  the
       screen  will be automatically blanked (using APM if available).
       Without an argument, gets the blank status  (returns  which  vt
       was blanked or zero for unblanked vt).

       The force option keeps screen blank even if a key is pressed.

       The poke option unblank the screen.

Alternatively you can set the kernel parameter consoleblank=Y (Y being seconds here). consoleblank=0 disables blanking.

Best Answer

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