Ubuntu
gnome-power-manager package

  1. Bug #41994
  2. Comment #30

Comment 30 for bug 41994

Revision history for this message
Ted Gould (ted) wrote : Re: [Bug 41994] Re: closed Laptop Lid to reliably keep Backlight off

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 08:09 +0000, Andrew Oakley wrote:
> Fair enough. The next best situation for Hardy, would be to perfect my
> workaround script /etc/acpi/local/lid.sh.pre (
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-power-
> manager/+bug/41994/comments/21 )
>
> Currently the script detects the XAUTHORITY and DISPLAY environment
> variables in this manner:
>
> export XAUTHORITY=`ls -1 /home/*/.Xauthority`
> export DISPLAY=:0
>
> This is unreliable as I understand things (which may be wrong), since
> with multiple concurrent logged-on desktop users ("switch users"), there
> may be more than one .Xauthority file and more than one display.
>
> How, in a shell script or similar, can I detect the currently active
> console .Xauthority and currently active console display, even if there
> are multiple concurrent desktop users logged in?

You can use ConsoleKit:

http://people.freedesktop.org/~mccann/doc/ConsoleKit/ConsoleKit.html

using the dbus-send command line tools to query the current session and
figure out it's properties. This should work with fast-user switching
and other technologies.