Laptop: Lid Closed -> Monitor Turns Off

[cazort]

How do I set this up? I've found these instructions:

http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Automatically_turn_off_your_monitor

But they look a bit out of date and I'm wondering if there's a better way to do this. In particular, I noticed that the scripts are using the deprecated /proc/acpi filesystem so I'm wondering if this means that that part of the page is out-of-date.

Also, it seems that it involves editing a (rather than editing a configuration file). I tend to avoid editing scripts because it's not sustainable--every time new versions of the software is released, I then have to spend time updating the scripts, which makes my system much more time-consuming to maintain.

Any easier or at least more sustainable ways to do this?
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Alex Zorach | Teacology | RateTea | Why This Way

[Malvineous]

In this case I think you'll have to use scripts, because acpid just responds to events - when you close your laptop lid an event is generated, and acpid handles the event by running a script. It can't do anything fancy like turn the monitor off itself, because it's only a "connector" between events and scripts. (Not to mention that many laptops use different methods to switch off the screen.)

You shouldn't be modifying existing scripts though (which as you point out would be overwritten by package upgrades), instead you should be creating a new script, with a unique name, to provide the functionality you want. When packages are upgraded they'll leave your custom script alone because it doesn't belong to the package. Unless something major changes within the software it's unlikely you'll often need to change the script - only as often as you'd need to update any config files because of the same major changes.