(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I was editing a text document when suddenly the screen just went blank (black but still backlit). I have had the screen jittering on me before and switching desktop workspaces settled it down. but with a totally black screen, how do I switch desktops? Is there some hotkey to do this? If not, can I create one (once I'm past this instance)?

Lucid 528 on Asus Eee 900

I've had this happen to me many times and in various versions of Puppy (but always on a desktop, I don't own a laptop.) It's like the screensaver kicks in when it shouldn't, and with a black screen. I just wiggle my mouse a bit and the screen comes back. What have you tried?

mouse and various keystrokes. tried ctrl-s in case Geany uses that to save the current file, don't know yet if that took. but no change in the screen... except that after a while, pressing a key did turn the backlight back on (Still black though).

I have promised to not give advice due to my low quality of answer.

But if none else come up with some suggestion.

Two related answers?
1. BIOS may have activated some kind of power saving for battery?
Just my wild guess.
2. Typically I 've forgot it already. I should not try to help.
I am too confused. But I worked as a problem solver for living
and I lost all jobs but I did learn that the only way to solve the
tricky things that went wrong where to be very methodically.

To start from the very first thing.
Power supply
Battery
How these get regulated by BIOS
How the software deal with signals from
Power Supply and Batery. Does some protection set it?

Can one change that line in the edible script.

You get what I confusely say so I bow out of the thread and wish you all the best.

It is plugged in, so it shouldn't be a battery-related problem. I think it might be related to whatever might be causing the occasional flickering screen, which does reset when I change to the other desktop workspace. But when I can't see ANYTHING, I can't see where the mouse pointer is to click on the workspace buttons.

As a workaround, there may be a key combination that changes desktops. (I know, that's what you asked about in your first post. If there is one, I don't know about it.) If not, perhaps you can create one. (Read the whole thread before giving up. )

Guys,

Joe's Window Manager has this functionality built in, so there is no need to set up any hotkeys.

• Alt (+) 1 = Desktop #1
  Alt (+) 2 = Desktop #2
  Alt (+) 3 = Desktop #3

This setting can be found in /.jwm/jwmrc-extra and it is already enabled.

Hope this helps,
Monsie

...assuming n0ukf or anyone else isn't using a different WM, right?

Hmm... I know ROX tends to black-screen if it crashes, but does it only do that on one (JWM) desktop? I usually set JWM to one desktop only... if that's the case, maybe I'd have another reason for actually setting it for more than one, again. (Not that I plan to have ROX crash, though. )

Flash wrote:

I just wiggle my mouse a bit and the screen comes back.

This usually works.
If not, try Esc key.
If that doesn't work, type xwin, then Enter key.

Makoto, I don't think these are ROX crashes. The whole screen goes black. This happens very rarely. When it does happen, it's usually just as I start to do something after the computer has been idle for a while. Because it happens so rarely, I never noticed if it was always the same thing. I'll try to pay more attention in future.

I know, but I was wondering if having multiple desktops could be a safety buffer against ROX crashes. That's what I get for letting my mind (what's left of it) tangent.

I figured there could be a chance it might be ROX, though. A rather slim chance, if it did only crash on one desktop in a multi-desktop setup.

Possibility.. Have xbindkeys *trigger* >> vbetool dpms on!

I did find (accidentally) that ctrl+ (or was that ctrl+alt+) left and right cursor keys changed desktops.

But a couple days ago when it went blank on me again (this time gray instead of black), that didn't help me. It stops responding to anything at all except the hard power-down, no mouse movements or clicks, no keys, nothing.

I've never seen a gray screen before that I can remember.

Makoto wrote:...assuming n0ukf or anyone else isn't using a different WM, right?

I suppose I should say I'm currently using the openbox instead of JWM (assuming that the current one is selected when starting WM Switcher).

n0ukf wrote:I was editing a text document when suddenly the screen just went blank (black but still backlit).

n0ukf wrote:. . . tried ctrl-s in case Geany uses that to save the current file, don't know yet if that took. but no change in the screen . . .

Did you later find that your Ctrl-s worked?

If it did work, then geany still had keyboard focus, and the remainder of this post doesn't apply to this case.

If it didn't work, it is possible that you may have somehow been switched to another virtual console. Some virtual consoles in Puppy have login prompts or other text, but some are blank and backlit as you described. (You may see a single blinking cursor.) For instance, if you meant to press Ctrl+Shift+F9 but accidently pressed Ctrl+Alt+F9, you would end up in virtual console 9.

The Puppies that I have used all run X on virtual console 4. So if you find yourself out in the cold, pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 should get you back. (Other distros (and possibly other Puppies?) may run X elsewhere, such as virtual console 2 or 6.)

Of course, there are many other possibilities, like X may have crashed without restoring the video registers to allow viewing the test console. If that is the case, not much will help, except restarting X as Dewbie explained above -- also, you might need to press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get back to virtual console 1 before typing xwin.

I haven't seen it blank now for a few weeks but it does occasionally get horizontal jitters. Swithing between desktop 1 and 2 will stop it for a while, as will switching virtual consoles. I just noticed today that while the display will jitter sideways, the mouse pointer does not. I'll keep watching for another blank to try the console switching. Until theren any guesses whether the blanking and the jitters are related or not?

First a note on the above. When the screen is jittering, the mouse pointer isn't, and changing tabs in Firefox also stops the jitters.

Today when visiting a site, the screen went blank but in a color from that site, not black or gray as mentioned before. Trying to change virtual consoles back and forth (ctrl+alt+f1 & ctrl+alt+f4) did absolutely nothing, so the whole system was locked up.

This happened to me but I could still see the menu icon in the bottom left. I chose shutdown and Restart X server. Bada bing.

Hope it works.