Raspberry Pi/Quick Reference

xset

Overview

xset allows you to control a few things, but the most common is the monitor states. You can manipulate, enable, or disable some features like:

• dpms energy star features
• monitor standby, suspend, off, or on
• screen blanking
• screen exposing
• activate/reset screen saver
• screen saver on/off

disable screen saver/blanking

a common issue with raspberry pis used in kiosk/monitor setups is the screen blanking/screen saver kicking in. You can disable them with the following commands:

~$xset s noblank
~$xset s noexpose
~$xset s off
~$xset dpms 0 0 0

check it by doing:

~$xset -q
 Keyboard Control:
  auto repeat:  on    key click percent:  0    LED mask:  00000000
  XKB indicators:
    00: Caps Lock:   off    01: Num Lock:    off    02: Scroll Lock: off
    03: Compose:     off    04: Kana:        off    05: Sleep:       off
    06: Suspend:     off    07: Mute:        off    08: Misc:        off
    09: Mail:        off    10: Charging:    off    11: Shift Lock:  off
    12: Group 2:     off    13: Mouse Keys:  off
  auto repeat delay:  500    repeat rate:  33
  auto repeating keys:  00ffffffdffffbbf
                        fadfffefffedffff
                        9fffffffffffffff
                        fff7ffffffffffff
  bell percent:  0    bell pitch:  400    bell duration:  100
Pointer Control:
  acceleration:  20/10    threshold:  10
Screen Saver:
  prefer blanking:  no    allow exposures:  no
  timeout:  0    cycle:  600
Colors:
  default colormap:  0x20    BlackPixel:  0x0    WhitePixel:  0xffff
Font Path:
  /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,built-ins
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 0    Suspend: 0    Off: 0
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On

turn monitors on/off

Before you can control the monitors on/off feature, you need to make sure that