Re: Off screen

[Heather <star@betelgeuse.starshine.org>]

> Jordan Howarth wrote:
> 
> > In a fit of desperation I just pressed the power
> > button, and,rather than powering off, everything came back on as per " I click the
> > "mouse" or I type a caracter". Try this instead of these other methods - apologies
> > if this was the first thing you did (it wasn't mentioned).
> 
> It wasn't mentioned because I tried it:
> 
> just pressed the power button  => nothing
> less than just press           => nothing
> less less than just press      => nothing
> less less less than just press => reboot, fsck
> 
> I add that I have no apm tool, just a normal debian, nothing about
> power managment.

Sounds like it's related to your system's idea of (BIOS) suspend behavior.
It also reminds me that in an earlier age, X had to be tweaked to deal with 
APM, and in some systems, even the tweak didn't really help.

If you use ctrl+alt+Fn to switch to a text console before acting, does it
behave as you would have preferred?

Which version of X is it that you have?

As seen on a different thread, if you have stock debian kernels, all you
need is append="apm=on" in your LILO config, and the kernel should support
apm itself.  I don't think that is specifically your trouble though.  The
usual symptoms that lack of kernel APM support are what's getting you, is
crashing on resume, or within a few moments of resume, because some app
lost the game of "musical chairs" and was the task up when you took it down.
If the code caught without a chair was deep enough then the hang is immediate.
That's not what you're describing at all.

You could also be triggering the BIOS idea of "hold the power button long
enough" to turn the system off hard.

I usually waken things with shift, because it generates make/breaks but it
doesn't tend to trigger anything in the way of a command - nor lock a state.
A mouse click might actually get listened to.


-* Heather Stern * Starshine Technical Services * star@starshine.org *-
I. Any body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of
   its situation.
		-- Esquire, "O'Donnell's Laws of Cartoon Motion", June 1980

p.s. in the great sig debate, I always have the editor pull in the fragments.
     My decision of a short or long signoff, and whether I want a quote,
     is too complex to commit to the mailer;  also, I select quotes to match
     the conversation, not randomly, and that's beyond most AI scope.