Disable blank screen in 12.04

After my computer with ubuntu 12.04 has been idle for a short while, the screen will go blank, and even enter standby mode. I have tried this:

1. System Settings -> Brightness and Lock -> Turn off screen... set to "Never"
2. System Settings -> Power -> Suspend when... set to "Don't suspend"

This doesn't change anything.

How can I make sure that the screen will always remain on, forever?

Solution 1:

Try opening a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T and then enter the following:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/gnome-screensaver/idle_activation_enabled "false"

Solution 2:

You can install the dconf-tools package and then run dconf-editor.

In dconf-editor, open up the "org" branch, then "gnome" then "desktop" then "screensaver" and you'll see the name-value pairs that set the various screensaver properties.

Change "idle-activation-enabled" to unchecked.

You could also uncheck "lock-enabled" while you're there to prevent it demanding your password when it's been idle too long.

However this might not work! It didn't work for me when I was trying and I can only assume that there is a bug somewhere in xfce4, which is the windows manager I installed on 12.04 instead of Unity. If you also suffer problems, the work-around is to use xset:

xset -dpms s off s noblank s 0 0 s noexpose

but that only lasts as long as your session.

You can use

xset -q

to see what the current settings are. It basically overrides the settings in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

You would have to put it into your .profile to re-apply it every session.