Xfce Forum

dummkauf

Member

Registered: 2017-07-25

Posts: 2

locking without xflock4?

Is it possible to turn off my laptop screen and lock the computer without xflock4?

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 and recently replaced unity with xfce4.  When I lock the laptop, xflock4 starts the screensaver and prompts for my password to unlock it.   If I lock it and then close the lid of my laptop, it suspends.  When it wakes up from suspend, first I get the xflock4 prompt for my password, then as soon as I click on anything, it locks again and takes me to the Ubuntu login screen(same screen when I reboot and login for the 1st time).

Is it possible to configure xfce to lock the computer, just turn the screen off, and then use the primary Ubuntu login screen to unlock the computer, and completely get rid of xflock4?

ozjd

Member

From: Hawkesbury NSW Australia

Registered: 2012-02-05

Posts: 560

Website

Re: locking without xflock4?

xflock4 is just a script that calls whatever locking applications you have installed. It doesn't have its own login screen. It sounds like you are getting the login screen from the screensaver and then the Ubuntu one. You could turn off the screensaver or stop it from locking the desktop. How you do that will depend on the screensaver you have. Neither the screensaver nor the login screen are part of Xfce.

dummkauf

Member

Registered: 2017-07-25

Posts: 2

Re: locking without xflock4?

xflock4 is just a script that calls whatever locking applications you have installed. It doesn't have its own login screen. It sounds like you are getting the login screen from the screensaver and then the Ubuntu one. You could turn off the screensaver or stop it from locking the desktop. How you do that will depend on the screensaver you have. Neither the screensaver nor the login screen are part of Xfce.

Makes sense, so perhaps I should rephrase the question.  What script locks the screen using the Ubuntu login screen so that I can just call that with hotkeys to lock my laptop instead of xflock4?

ozjd

Member

From: Hawkesbury NSW Australia

Registered: 2012-02-05

Posts: 560

Website

Re: locking without xflock4?

xflock4 is just a script that calls whatever locking applications you have installed. It doesn't have its own login screen. It sounds like you are getting the login screen from the screensaver and then the Ubuntu one. You could turn off the screensaver or stop it from locking the desktop. How you do that will depend on the screensaver you have. Neither the screensaver nor the login screen are part of Xfce.

Makes sense, so perhaps I should rephrase the question.  What script locks the screen using the Ubuntu login screen so that I can just call that with hotkeys to lock my laptop instead of xflock4?

You could do that by looking at the xflock4 script and see what it is calling. It tries a number of packages until it finds one that exists. However that won't solve your issue with 2 login screens. The best alternative is to leave xflock4 alone and fix the broken configuratin that is causing the problem. If it is as I suggested and your screensaver is kicking in automatically when the system suspends then it will keep doing that. If you use xscreensaver, as many distros do, it has an option to lock the screen when going to sleep. I've no idea how Ubuntu configures their lockscreens so can't help there.