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Accepted
Alex
Asked: 2012-05-19 05:03:16 +0800 CST

How do I disable the blank console "screensaver" on Ubuntu Server?

  • 772

How to disable blank screensaver on Ubuntu Server?

There's no desktop or X, only console (command-line interface).

server command-line kernel screensaver

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    The easiest way is to add the parameter consoleblank=0 to your kernel command-line at boot-time.

    • Open /etc/default/grub in your favorite editor; you will need to use sudo (for vi, nano, etc.) or gksudo (for gedit, etc.).

    • Then add consoleblank=0 to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=, parameter.

    • e.g. yours may say:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash consoleblank=0"

    Then run sudo update-grub, and reboot.

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  2. Type setterm -blank 0 on any shell to disable blanking out of tty consoles.

    0 disables blanking, any value greater than 0 is the time in minutes. Default is 10.

    To permanently enable this you can add this line to your ~/.bashrc config.

    A more detailled explaination can be found in this answer at superuser.

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  3. Same situation, the other suggestions seemed a roundabout solution. Came across the GNU tool setvesablank on/off using apropos. It seems the best fit, trying it out to see if it fits the need.

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  4. This will "overwrite" whatever is in your current config for "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=", mine was default, so I just use the following One Liner.

    sudo sed -i 's/\(^GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=\).*/\GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="consoleblank=0"/' /etc/default/grub && sudo update-grub2
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