Add echo command to /etc/profile to disable screen blanking

Question

I am considering adding the following echo command to /etc/profile

echo -e ‘\033[9;0]\033[14;0]’

The system in question does not have setterm command available and is just running text console.

Are there any problems with doing this the way I plan to?

Answer 1

/etc/profile is read by several Bourne-like shells. echo -e is not standard, so there might be some shells on your system that don't recognize it. You should use printf instead.

printf '\033[9;0]\033[14;0]'

(which in addition, won't add that spurious newline character).

Some tools may start non-interactive login shells (like with bash --login) where you may not want that to happen. You could add extra checks like:

case $TERM$- in
  (linux*i*) printf '\033[9;0]\033[14;0]' > /dev/tty
esac

To check that you're in a Linux virtual console and that it is an interactive shell. Outputting to the controlling terminal in case stdout has been redirected.