Xfce Forum

Herix

Member

Registered: 2020-11-13

Posts: 10

The screen locks too much, methink

Whenever I don't interact with the computer for nine or ten minutes, the screen locks and the whole system audibly goes to sleep, and, on waking up, the login prompt is shown, demanding the password.

This is ~not~ the desired behavior. I do want to be able to lock the screen when I want it so : currently ctrl+alt+suppr, which is fine. Otherwise this machine shall stay alert.

I wouldn't swear, but I believe that this untimely locking appeared after I re-installed Debian 13 anew following a botched attempt at upgrading from Bookworm. I did restore my home directory though, indiscriminately carrying over the pre-existing settings, I guess.

I checked the Settings Manager, and again, and tried various combinations. The following has been stable for a few days:

>> Hardware / Power Manager
    [System]
        System power saving
            System sleep mode: Suspend
            When inactive for : Never
        Security
            [not checked]Lock screen when system is going to sleep
           
    [Display] : the "Display power management" toggle is off, the sliders labelled "Put to sleep after" and "Switch off after" are both greyed out.

>> System / Session and Startup [Application Autostart]

☑️ Screen Locker (Launch screen locker program)            on login

I quickly perused Other / Settings Editor. Nothing seemed abnormal, but I'm way out of my depth here.

/* ------------- indidently ------------- */
This notion of locking the screen is a bit silly anyway isn't it ? What we want is to lock the whole workstation, that is, to prevent any unauthorized interaction while the logged-in user isn't seated between the chair and the keyboard. I would suppose that some confusion lingers on since the bygone days of the flying toasters or yore, but I digress ;-)

eriefisher

Wanderer

From: ON, Canada

Registered: 2008-10-25

Posts: 807

Re: The screen locks too much, methink

For some reason Debian uses Lightlocker to lock the screen. This will be changed at some time. You can replace it with xfce4-screensaver and use the settings to determine your lock scenario. I don't let my laptop lock at all on it's own and don't use a screen saver. The screen just blanks after a set time. If I want to lock the screen for some reason I just send the desktop back to the login manager, Lightdm in my case. I have this set up in the menu but you could have a key combo to do this easily.

dm-tool lock

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