[kde-linux] Screen locker in KDE 4.10

[Duncan]

Thomas Taylor posted on Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:26:00 -0800 as excerpted:

> The "screen locker" makes sense in a business/corporate environment but
> not in a personal/home one.  I find "screen locker" to be nothing but a
> waste of my time since I am handicapped and use the keyboard VERY
> slowly.  Is there some way to turn this thing off? Although I have
> require password unchecked it still requires them.
> 
> Further, what has happened to the screen-saver choices that previous
> editions of KDE had? At least let home/non-business users have the
> choice of turning the screen locker off.

First, you may know this but AFAIK kde 4.10 isn't released yet.  They 
went with a third release candidate, 4.9.98, since there had been enough 
last-minute code changes they decided it was warranted.  rc3 was released 
late last week (it was scheduled for Friday, Jan 18, but what I know is 
that it was available in the gentoo/kde testing overlay yesterday when I 
did a tree and overlay update), with 4.10.0 scheduled for final tagging 
on Wednesday, January 30, to be followed by release a week later on 
Wednesday, February 6.  That's according to the official schedule posted 
on techbase:

http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules

So if you updated Saturday, you may have gotten 4.10-rc3 (aka 4.9.98).  
Otherwise, you probably have before rc3.  In any case, you can't have 
4.10 release yet, as it's not even scheduled for /tagging/ until January 
30.


Meanwhile, the greeter plugin used by the screenlocker is part of kdm.  
On gentoo at least, kdm is a separate package.  Since I don't use a *DM 
of any sort, preferring to login at the CLI and run startx with a kde 
xsession, I don't have kdm installed at all.  As a result, I have no 
greeter plugin, so no way to unlock the screen if I DID lock it.

FWIW, previous kde4 releases would refuse to lock the screen in that 
case, saying it wouldn't lock as there was no greeter plugin configured.  
However, apparently the new qt-quick rewrite they did for 4.10 doesn't do 
that detection (at least as of rc3), it simply locks the screen, leaving 
everything visible but unresponsive as it's locked, with no way to unlock.

Fortunately when I tested it, the ctrl-alt-fX shortcuts still worked, and 
I was able to switch to a CLI VT and do a killall startkde, which killed 
the unresponsive X/KDE session, allowing me to start a new one.


Meanwhile, the screen locker can definitely be turned off as it didn't 
activate here until I specifically tested it.  FWIW, I don't have any 
screensavers installed either.  I simply let xorg turn off the monitors 
when idle.  No screensaver.  It turns them (dual monitor setup here) back 
on when I wiggle the mouse or hit a key on the keyboard.  I've had X/kde 
configured for that for years, now, tho sometimes I install screensavers 
for awhile and try them out if I get bored, but most of the time 
(including ATM) I don't even have them installed.


Finally, because I don't have the various bits installed there isn't much 
for me to actually try, but I SUSPECT what you are looking for is the 
screen locker kcontrol applet, found in kde settings, hardware, display 
and monitor, screen locker.

Here, I have the "start automatically after <time>" option toggled off, 
so xorg's normal power-saving kicks in, turning off the screen after the 
idle timeout.  If I'm not using the monitors, turning them off and saving 
the power is most sensible option in any case, and screensavers, etc, 
pretty much aren't used, just takeing up install space and requiring 
periodic update maintenance.  As such, better to not even install them at 
all. =:^) 

I'd guess you either want that (start automatically unchecked), or start 
automatically after <time> turned ON, but require password after <time> 
turned OFF.

As I said I don't have any screensavers installed so I can't test that 
bit of it, but I'd guess once you have them installed, they'd show up in 
(to me blank) listbox, allowing you to select screen saver if desired, 
and setup and test it.

Of course it's possible that's one of the reasons for the third rc, 
because this isn't working quite right yet.  But I do know that with the 
start automatically option OFF, it doesn't bother me at all, here.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman