Power Management in Slackware

Posted by: Andrew Smith
Poster contact info: andrew-smith at mail ru
Author: Andrew Smith, Miguel
Originally published: don't remember
Software: Slackware 10.0, Slackware 10.1

Are you wondering why power management never works even though you can swear you enabled it in KDE/Gnome/XFCE? Perhaps you've also noticed that it works just right as long as the system is in runlevel 3 but not after X starts.

Here's how you fix it:

Edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. You need to add Option "OffTime" "30" to the ServerFlags section and Option "DPMS" to the Monitor section. 30 is the number of minutes of inactivity before the monitor turns off.

Example:
...

# **********************************************************************
# Server flags section.
# **********************************************************************

Section "ServerFlags"

    Option "OffTime" "30"

# Uncomment this to cause a core dump at the spot where a signal is
# received.  This may leave the console in an unusable state, but may
# provide a better stack trace in the core dump to aid in debugging

...

# VertRefresh is in Hz unless units are specified.
# VertRefresh may be a comma separated list of discrete values, or a
# comma separated list of ranges of values.
# NOTE: THE VALUES HERE ARE EXAMPLES ONLY.  REFER TO YOUR MONITOR'S
# USER MANUAL FOR THE CORRECT NUMBERS.

    VertRefresh 50-100

    Option "DPMS"

EndSection


# **********************************************************************
# Graphics device section
# **********************************************************************

...

I spent almost two years wondering why it didn't work, thank you miguel.