Bug 7278

Summary: Default core-image-x11 has X server with screen blanking active
Product: [Build System, Metadata & Runtime] OE-Core Reporter: Phlip Balister <philip>
Component: graphicsAssignee: Jussi Kukkonen <jku>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact:
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: Medium CC: meta.mr.watcher, meta.watcher, rkocisko, ross.burton, shannon.barber
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: 2.1   
Hardware: x86   
OS: Multiple   
Whiteboard:
OS type for building Yocto: --- Type of Regression: ---
Verified: Documentation change: Don't know

Description Phlip Balister 2015-02-03 17:31:29 UTC
For most embedded applications, we do not want an active screen blanker, since there may not be a way to show screen activity. Also, if the screen blanks, people think the device is off.

Let's make the default config not use the screen blanker.
Comment 1 Ross Burton 2015-02-05 15:47:14 UTC
That's -s 0 to xserver, right?
Comment 2 Ross Burton 2015-09-24 15:34:16 UTC
If possible lets have an easy-to-tweak option for this.
Comment 3 Jussi Kukkonen 2015-10-01 10:41:35 UTC
Documenting before I forget:
 * Should make sure we handle both X screensaving and dpms (IIRC default is both are on)
 * these may get set at xserver command line "-s 0 -dpms", with xset or xorg.conf
Comment 4 Shannon Barber 2015-10-08 17:52:12 UTC
Given the context of the audience of Yocto I would classify this as a minor bug (as opposed to an enhancement).
Almost everyone using Yocto will have to fix this for their target builds.
Comment 5 Phlip Balister 2015-10-09 11:31:43 UTC
Reminding myself to look how to do this via bbappend, but I still argue the default should be no screensaver. Then show people how to change it via bbappend.
Comment 6 Jussi Kukkonen 2016-03-23 15:09:18 UTC
I can easily add a PACKAGECONFIG[blank] to x11-common that would make at least the bbappend case trivial.

I'm not so sure how I should deal with changing the default to not-blanking though, assuming that e.g. core-image-sato should still continue blanking. It seems a bit silly to add a distro feature for something like this.

Something like 'PACKAGECONFIG_remove_pn-x11-common = "blank"' in poky distro config does not seem like a common idiom either (although there's a case in poky-tiny.conf)...
Comment 7 Jussi Kukkonen 2016-04-07 12:17:17 UTC
There's a patch on list:
http://lists.openembedded.org/pipermail/openembedded-core/2016-April/119987.html

It does not change the default but should make the change trivial to those who need it (just remove "blank" from packageconfig).
Comment 8 Jussi Kukkonen 2016-04-11 07:05:50 UTC
I recognise that the patch does not do exactly what the original post asks for, but I'd like to mark this RESOLVED so QA can verify things still work as they should. Philip, Shannon: can you please file a new bug if you think we should still change the default after this (or comment here and I'll file it)?

For anyone verifying this: default build should still blank the screen after 10 minutes of inactivity. There should be no blanking if e.g local.conf has
    PACKAGECONFIG_remove_pn-x11-common = "blank"


commit aa45c75df989302ba8ae9deaf136b0046f0b4f84
Author: Jussi Kukkonen <jussi.kukkonen@intel.com>
Date:   Thu Apr 7 14:49:44 2016 +0300

    x11-common: Add PACKAGECONFIG for screen blanking
    
    when "blank" is not in PACKAGECONFIG, explicitly set dpms and
    screensaver off. The intention here is to make it easier to
    create builds that should not blank the screen (just remove
    "blank" from x11-common PACKAGECONFIG).