Re: [PATCH] console: make blank timeout value a boot option

[Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>]

On Tue,  2 Jun 2009 16:46:33 +0200 Daniel Mack <daniel@caiaq.de> wrote:

> The console blank timer is currently hardcoded to 10*60 seconds which is
> ok for most applications but might be annoying when using the console
> for debugging and no userspace application was started to manually
> change this default behaviour.
> 
> This patch defines a core_param for the variable in charge which allows
> users to entirely disable the blank feature by setting it 0.
> 
> ...
>
> --- a/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
> @@ -545,6 +545,10 @@ and is between 256 and 4096 characters. It is defined in the file
>  			console=brl,ttyS0
>  		For now, only VisioBraille is supported.
>  
> +	consoleblank=	[KNL] The console blank (screen saver) timeout in
> +			seconds. Defaults to 10*60 = 10mins. A value of 0
> +			disables the blank timer.
> +

It would be better to make this alterable at runtime, rather than at
boot time.  Perhaps another VT ioctl.

In fact I'm rather surprised that this isn't already the case.