On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Leonid Grinberg <lgrinberg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Don't laptops do this in hardware? turning off the screen when the lid >> is closed? (Mine does so). >> Whyd would you need acpid to control this? > > I don't think my laptop does this. If someone has a Dell Inspiron e1505/6400 > and knows how to make it turn off the backlight in hardware, please tell me. You're in luck! I maintain the acpid package *and* my notebook is a Dell Inspiron 6400. I use the default handler.sh file for my stuff, found in /etc/acpi. I have the lid closure trigger a suspend-to-ram: button/lid) #echo "LID switched!">/dev/tty5 grep -q closed /proc/acpi/button/lid/*/state if [ $? = 0 ]; then echo -n mem >/sys/power/state fi ;; You can easily replace "echo -n mem >/sys/power/state" with any of the following, depending on your desired result: xset dpms force off xscreensaver-command -lock etc.