The K Desktop Environment

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1. Function and Configuration

1.1 Introduction

Powermanagment is a badly documented feature of the accelerated X servers. KDPMS was developed to make setting DPMS as easy as pointing and clicking. KDPMS was developed using the Mach64 X server, but should work with most X servers. After the program starts up, it checks to see if the X server supports Powermanagment, and shows a messagebox if it doesn't.

KDPMS allows a user to change the following parameters without manually altering the XF86Config file:

Toggling DPMS enabled, directly modifies the X-server. For the other values to take affect you have to press the apply or OK button. The options are directly testable through the corresponding Test button.

Because this program communicates directly with the X server, all changes are lost on exit. An easy way around this is to add a program link into your Autostart folder:

1.2 Installation for automatic startup

Now DPMS will be enable every time you start up. You can still use KDPMS to change the times, it will remember it next time.

If you are a lover of hand editing, here's commands to do everything manually:

To start KDPMS from your .xsession or .xinitrc file add the line:

kcmdpms -init  

1.3 Setting the DPMS values for kdm

You can use the following entry in your /etc/XF86Config to setup Powermanagment by default and bypass KDPMS completely, but during your X session the values of KDPMS still apply. The values below come into affect when kdm window is shown on the screen.

In the Section "Device" add the line

Option      "power_saver"

And in the Section "Screen" add the lines

BlankTime   5
SuspendTime 10
OffTime     15 

The default values for the Mach64 server are 20, 30 and 40 minutes.

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