Ubuntu
gnome-power-manager package

keep computer from sleeping when terminal is active

Asked by Roy Lowrance

On Ubuntu 10.10, I have set my power management preferences to put computer to sleep when inactive for 2 hours.

I run a long-running job in the terminal (it will run for days). After the 2 hours, Ubuntu sleeps my computer.

Is there a way to tell Ubuntu that the job running in the terminal constitutes activity and hence the computer should not sleep while it is running?

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mycae
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Best mycae (mycae) said : 		#1

run this command before you start your job:

OLD_POWER_SETTING=`gconftool-2 --get /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac`

gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac 0

 --- Do job ---

gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac $OLD_POWER_SETTING

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Roy Lowrance (roy-lowrance) said : 		#2

thx.

Would be nice to be able to do this through the UI though.

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mycae (mycae) said : 		#3

You can -- I assumed you wanted a way to batch automate it from the terminal.

Go to the power settings, and disable the sleep function.

System->Preference->Power management->Put comptuer to sleep (never)

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Roy Lowrance (roy-lowrance) said : 		#4

That's what I do now.

I would think that jobs started explicitly from a terminal would count as activity and hence even the Power Management panel would not count the compute as inactive when these jobs were running.

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mycae (mycae) said : 		#5

You could modify gnome-terminal to actually be a shell script with those settings.

==FILE CONTENTS BELOW====
#!/bin/bash
OLD_POWER_SETTING=`gconftool-2 --get /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac`
gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac 0

real-gnome-terminal

gconftool-2 --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/timeout/sleep_computer_ac $OLD_POWER_SETTING
==FILE CONTENTS ABOVE====

Just be aware that updates could knock this out. Or you could call it "my-gnome-terminal" instead.