[Closed] Unix help please - an easy one

Just create a new file and test for it's existence with your enable/disable script. Just touch an empty file called "monitor" or something, and have your script rename it accordingly when toggled - monitor.on and monitor.off or something

>> to append, > to overwite I think BTW

I think $DISPLAY should hold the info you want.

Or xset q

Thanks folks.

The external monitor config requires me to start a second X server. It shows up differently in the output of ps, so maybe I should just use.. grep?

ps -ef | grep <X_SERVER_PROCESS_NAME> | grep -v grep

echo $? will return 0 if it was found, and 1 if it wasn't.

So in a shell script.. if <backwards apostrophe> grep gubbins <backwards apostrophe> != '' then ..?

Or whatever the hell the syntax is..

[code]if [ <backwards apostrophe>ps -ef | grep <XSERVERNAME> | grep -v grep<backwards apostrophe> ]
then
echo "it's running!"
else
echo "it's not running!"
fi[/code]

echo "cheers" >> verses

Obviously not relevant now, but;

I tried echo "ON" >> file ...
Also - simply echoing to that file will just append - how to replace the file contents?

Can you use xrandr? It outputs information about the attached displays.

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1680 x 1050, maximum 8192 x 8192
DVI-I-1 connected 1680x1050+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 474mm x 296mm

etc.

EDIT: no, you can't as it won't tell the on/off state of the monitor, just the display settings.

Nostalgic stuff.

SCO Openserver FTW!

No, the ps grep command definitely works. I'm just farting about with basic commands.

Verses' thing is right but I seem to be having syntactical problems...

#!/bin/bash
if [ ps -ef | grep "Xorg :8" | grep -v grep ]
then echo "Not running"
else
echo "Running"
fi

./test.sh: line 2: [: too many arguments
Running

EDIT.. ooh.. I think I see what's going on. It's evaluating the ps command and substituting it into the script.. that's not what I want

SCO openserver is utterly completely pants.

With badly-fitted knickers on.

need some backticks i think
edit: oh they were probably there but made the forum s/w freak out

I think you can do something like

result=$( ps -ef | grep "Xorg :8" | grep -v grep )
if [ $result ]
then echo "running";
else
echo "not running";
fi

Also, can't you set a global environmental variable instead of grep hackery?

E.g.

if [ $MONITOR_ON = true ]
export MONITOR_ON=false;
else
export MONITOR_ON=true;
fi

I don't know whether that works though I'm a bit rusty (EDIT: I just tried it actually and it only works in the terminal you run it in. As you were...)

Right, it needed both single backwards and double quotes around the ps bit.

However.. whilst it's running my script properly, the program I actually need to run crashes when run via this hotkey, but not when run via a shell.

Dear nVidia.. please develop proper Optimus support for Linux. Thanks, annoyed of Cardiff.

Pff.. can't get it to work via hotkey.. too hard, not enough benefit.

That's the spirit!

Something like Autokey might work? Define 2 different keys for toggling the monitor on/off?

https://code.google.com/p/autokey/

Guessing the script is being run sudo?
Hotkey binding in the Desktop Environment probably can't allow that (how do you put passwd in?)
Probably need to change owner or group to root or whatever X is arunning as, and set the setuid/setgid bits on the file, to make it run as a user with sufficient privilege?
could be talking BS though

You don't need to use setuid anymore, that's soooo 1990s.

sudo FTW!

Add a line like this to /etc/sudoers.conf

youruserid ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/yourcommand