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Date:      Sat, 10 Feb 1996 21:51:07 -0600
From:      Jon Loeliger <jdl@jdl.com>
To:        David Finkelstein <davef@cs.ubc.ca>
Cc:        questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Green screen saver under X on FreeBSD? 
Message-ID:  <199602110351.VAA01393@chrome.jdl.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 10 Feb 1996 12:49:02 PST." <"2536*davef@cs.ubc.ca"@MHS> 

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So, like David Finkelstein was saying to me just the other day:
> Greetings,

Greetings!

> I've been trying to get the green screen saver to work under X on
> FreeBSD.  The only references to this problem that I could find on the
> FreeBSD archives was your question asking the same thing.

Classic.  So, then, I'll send this one to the questions- archives
just for the record too. :-)

[ All you questions- watchers can ignore this out-of-the-blue mail.
  Also, I'm not watching questions- these days.  Sorry. ]


>  Did you ever come up with a solution? 

Somehow or another, I did...  Which is to say, it is now working.

> If so, I'd appreciate it if you could share it with me.

Well, let's see.  I think you've then read my description of what
was happening.  Are you seeing the same thing?

What I've done since then is install the "new" release of both the
OS and the XFree86.  So, now it's:

    FreeBSD 2.1.0-RELEASE (GENERIC) #0: Thu Nov 16 10:47:14  1995
    XFree86 3.1.2, I believe

In my X86Config, I've set:

    Section "Device"
        Identifier  "Number 9 GXE64 Pro 2M"
        VendorName  "Number 9"
        BoardName   "GXE64 Pro"
    #   Chipset     "Vision964"

        VideoRam    2048
        ClockChip   "Ti3025"

    #   DacSpeed    135 # Book value
        DacSpeed    220 # Cheat a little

        Option      "Number_nine"
        Option      "power_saver"
    EndSection

Careful.  Note that I am lying here about my DAC speeds.
I've got a Viewsonic 21 monitor.

I've "xset" the timeout to 600, and "prefer blanking" in my .xinitrc:

    xset s 600 &
    xset s blank &

I've also set the kernel to start the "green" screensaver
in /etc/sysconfig:

    # Set blank time (in seconds) or "off" to turn it off (or NO for default)
    blanktime="600"

    # Set to screen saver desired: blank, green, snake, star (or NO for none)
    saver="green"

I'm pretty sure that it is the *kernel*'s screen saver that is really
kicking in and being effective here when NOT using X.  I believe this
part has always been working for me.

When X is running (most of the time), I'm really not sure how it
is happening.  I'd like to believe that it is the "power_saver" option.
I *think* this was one of the things that was a known bug in XF86 3.1.1
that was supposed to have been fixed in 3.1.2.

Now, for some reason, it works, and I don't think I've really changed
all that much.  One thing that I know is different "now" than when
I tried it before, is that I first had the kernel "blank", and then
later switched to "green".  If you've changed yours too, you may be
seeing the same thing I did.

So, when I reinstalled 2.1.0 and 3.1.2, things got better, apparently....
If you've got both the OS and the X releases up to date,  then I'm
not really sure what the problem could be.  Linger bad stuff?  Old LKM
module?  Vague.  Sorry.  

jdl

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jon Loeliger		| There's a heart on her sleeve, from a spill of
Chromatic Research Inc	| red wine; there's a piece of green in the blue
jdl@chromatic.com	| of her eyes; she named it after me.	Marillion



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