Turn off screensaver.

[Ebere]

This may be the shortest and easiest tutorial, ever. LOL (Well, the tute, part, anyway. The explanation takes the most typing.)

Admins, if this isn't the right place for this, please feel free to relocate it.

The problem: Screensaver just doesn't seem to turn off.

The screen turns off after about 10 minutes no matter what you do. No screensaver settings, or power settings, etc, affect it. Turning off the screensaver, or even uninstalling it does not affect it. It just blanks the screen after ten minutes, no matter what.

This has been a problem for as long as I can remember. It has been a problem with every new release, for a while.

Solutions have ranged from installing and setting up a different screensaver, to writing text files and somehow executing them at startup. Etc.

All the instructions showing writing text files, setting up permissions, going there in the terminal, doing commands in the terminal, etc... after a while just leave my eyes glazed over.

The very simplest solution that I have tried, that actually works is:

Hit the "menu" button.
Go to "control center".
Go to "Startup Applications".
Hit "Add".
Give it whatever name you want. Same with comment...
In the "Command field", type or paste "xset -dpms".
Now hit "Add", and then back out of there.

That's it. You don't have to put in a second line. (Which would be "xset s off", if you had to add it.) Nothing else. Just reboot.

That's all I did. Nothing more, nothing less. I have been paying attention. My screensaver does NOT turn itself on. The screen does not turn off. Nothing like that. I can watch a movie or video without having to move the mouse or hit a key every ten minutes or so!

[rAllcorn]

So, this is probably why folks are using macOS more than LINUX ...
Issues like this one that never really get fixed.

It's ashamed too, LINUX is a better OS.

[karlchen]

Hello, Ebere.

The commandline which you present as the solution, xset -dpms, shows that what you really switch off is not the screensaver, in particular not an uninstalled screensaver (wonder how it could kick in auto-magically anyway); what you switch off is the monitor power saving mode (Energy Star funcionality, DPMS).
The xset manpage confirms so:

Code: Select all

man xset
[...]
       -dpms   The -dpms option disables DPMS (Energy Star) features.
       +dpms   The +dpms option enables DPMS (Energy Star) features.
[...]

DPMS permits your monitor to switch off the display and drop into standby mode after a certain time of inactivity.

Also as you put the command xset -dpms into the user's startup applications, rebooting is not required in order to execute it. Logging off from the graphical desktop and logging back into the graphical desktop would be sufficient.

Regards,
Karl

[David Farris]

Thank You eBere! This was driving me nuts!

[all41]

My monitor also is dpms compliant.
I disable this using a startup script that contains the following:
xset s 0 0 &
xset -dpms; xset s off
This is executed at every boot and alleviates the dpms entirely, not green--but personally compliant.