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I am running Ubuntu 20.04 server on a raspberry pi 4. My issue is that the screen does not turn off, at all.

I do not have any xserver installed, so x related answers won't work. Using setterm, I can enable screen blanking, but powerdown does nothing, even though that's what should control this. I've also tried gettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 10 to no avail. I tried setterm --blank 1 --powerdown 2

I did manage to turn off the power to the hdmi with a command, but that was another day so I cannot remember the command. I'm controlling the computer directly with a keyboard, not ssh

adoorable_door
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1 Answers1

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SOLUTION (verified with Ubuntu 20.04 server running on a laptop)

Create a file:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/enable-console-blanking.service

And put this into the file:

[Unit]
Description=Enable virtual console blanking

[Service]
Type=oneshot
Environment=TERM=linux
StandardOutput=tty
TTYPath=/dev/console
ExecStart=/usr/bin/setterm -blank 1


[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then change the file rights and enable the service:

sudo chmod 664 /etc/systemd/system/enable-console-blanking.service
sudo systemctl enable enable-console-blanking.service

And reboot the server. Now the screens blanks after 1 minute without keypresses, even before the login.

Tobias Holm
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  • I did not realized I had gotten a reply here. The issue is still at large, and your solution doesn't work. to be clear I can blank the screen, but that's not what I want to do, I want the display to after a set amount of no keystrokes being detected turn itself off. I've gathered that's what --powerdown does, but whenever I set that value nothing happens – adoorable_door Jun 02 '21 at 22:34
  • Have you tried adding the " -powersave powerdown " switch? Also check if some of the other switches of setterm can make it work for you: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix_commands/setterm.htm – Tobias Holm Jun 13 '21 at 21:01
  • THANK YOU! This solution works well for me. I use old iMacs as Ubuntu servers and have been trying many solutions but yours worked like a charm. – Jonathan Jun 20 '23 at 09:43