I've got an annoying problem with my new box at work.  Its a
Compaq Evo with a new integrated video card on an Intel 845g
chipset.  The chipset isn't supported natively by XFree, so I am
using the VESA driver.  It works OK except that if I switch to a
virtual terminal, logout of my X session, or the screen blanks
due to inactivity, the xserver hangs.  After it hangs, all I can
get at vt7 is a blank screen. If I try to restart, it hangs
immediately.  So to get X to come back, I am forced to reboot.

I submitted a bug on this and its been forwarded upstream, and I
can deal with not changing virtual terminals or logging out of X.
My problem is that I haven't been able to stop the automatic
screen blanking.  I thought that there should be an option
somewhere in the BIOS, but the only option I see are for the
stopping the hard drive and putting the whole computer in sleep
mode. I tried setting the time limit on both of those to
infinite, but that didn't help. So my question is, is there
anywhere that this kind of stuff is taken care of in software?  I
looked around for a relevant X or apmd option, but I haven't had
any luck.

Anyway, any hints would be much appreciated. Having to hit a key
every 15 minutes to keep my X session live is a PITA and I hate
rebooting every morning. I may have to break down and find
another video card to through in this thing or downgrade to XF 3.
  
-- 
Jim Crumley                  |Twin Cities Linux Users Group Mailing List (TCLUG)
crumley at fields.space.umn.edu |Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota 
Ruthless Debian Zealot       |http://www.mn-linux.org/ 
Never laugh at live dragons  |Dmitry's free,Jon's next? http://faircopyright.org