1.3. Turn Monitor off, use Keyboard LEDs

There are some tools which allow to get information from your computer without using the monitor:

• bl : Blink Keyboard LEDs

• blinkd : "Blinks keyboard LEDs for an answering machine or fax machine. Blinkd is a client/server pair, that lets the keyboard LEDs blink, indicating things like the number of incoming voice calls in the voice box or incoming faxes in the spool."

• mailleds : Shows new mails with the keyboard LEDs, mailleds is a quiet, unobtrusive way to signify that you have new mail: a user daemon to blink LEDs when there is new mail.

• tleds : Blinks keyboard LEDs indicating TX and RX network packets. They blink Scroll-Lock LED when a network packet leaves the machine, and Num-Lock LED when one is received.

• ledcontrol: is a program that allows you to show different information on the normally-unused LEDs on your keyboard. You can configure it to show virtually any true/false condition accessible or indicate an arbitrary number. The monitoring is by default done by shell scripts to allow for maximal configurability.