Using Cron keep your eyes in check

basic syntax for cron

a typical cron job looks like this

# m h  dom mon dow   command
  * *   *   *   *   /usr/bin/sh ls

• stand for wildcard this is not a cron tutorial this is just how i use it.

eyes.sh script

the bash script looks like

#!/bin/sh
export DISPLAY=:0
notify-send "EYES CHECK" "Look away for 15 seconds"

without line no 2 it wont work as it sets the display for notify-send. I am using notify-send as my notification daemon.

make sure that your display is :0
you can do this with

echo $DISPLAY

setting up crontab

first you will need to make sure cron is running you can do this by:

systemctl status cronie

p.s. this is specific to arch based system.

once cron is running you can create/edit cron job with crontab -e

then paste the code present below into the window.

*/15 * * * * /usr/bin/sh  /home/elnovo/.noti/eyes.sh

it runs every 15 min and eyes.sh is the bash script we discussed above. save it.
you can find the cron jobs currently present by crontab -l

sources

notify-send doesn't work from crontab