Disable automatic screen lock in XFCE in Centos

gnome xfce screen-lock

39,796

Solution 1

ps aux | grep screen revealed that gnome-screensaver was running.

whereis gnome-screensaver found it in /usr/bin (among other places).

Also in /usr/bin/ was gnome-screensaver-preferences

Solution: run /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-preferences and uncheck "Lock screen when screensaver is active". Optionally uncheck "Activate screensaver when computer is idle".

Solution 2

Is gnome-screensaver listed and ticked in Applications, settings, session and startup, application autostart? If so, untick it to stop it from starting.

If you don't have the Session and startup menu, you can do same thing checking for a gnome-screensaver file in the autostart directory. $HOME/.config/autostart

Try checking whether there is an active gconf setting that sets gnome-screensaver to start. Per the xscreensaver manual, a

gconftool-2 --type boolean -s /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/screensaver/start_screensaver false

command stops gnome-screensaver from starting. This means that if you want to see the current setting, you may want to try `

gconftool-2 -g /apps/gnome_settings_daemon/screensaver/start_screensaver

using '-g' instead of '-s' to get instead of set.

Solution 3

CentOs:
Applications -> System Tools -> Settings -> Privacy -> Screen Lock -> Disable it.

If you don't find Privacy search for lock and you will find the related search check which option says automatic screen lock.

39,796

Old Pro

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

Old Pro almost 2 years

I have a generic install of Centos 5.8 with XFCE 4.4. Pretty much all defaults. As is, after a certain amount of idle time the screen locks (goes black, requires a password to continue).

How do I disable the automatic screen lock?

I've searched around and read suggestions to use the settings manager to modify the Power Manager or Screen Saver settings but neither of those settings managers/panels/icons are installed on my desktop.

UPDATE:

It appears gnome-screensaver is being started automatically. Of course I could remove that program from the system, but I'd prefer to understand what's going on and use more ordinary configuration methods to prevent it from automatically starting and at the same time keep the option of switching back to it if needed.
- daisy almost 12 years
  
  Do you still need to lock the screen in other situations ?
- Old Pro almost 12 years
  
  @warl0ck Yes, I would like to be able to lock the screen on demand.
- daisy almost 12 years
  
  Do you have xscreensaver installed ?
- Old Pro almost 12 years
  
  AFAIK I do not have xscreensaver installed.
- daisy almost 12 years
  
  Can you show the output of ps aux | grep screen
- Old Pro almost 12 years
  
  @warl0ck, gnome-screensaver is running. I don't know how it got started.
- daisy almost 12 years
  
  How are you locking screen anyway, still use gnome-screensaver ?
- Admin almost 12 years
  
  Please run this -- sudo grep -r gnome-screensaver / -- and add it to your question.
- Old Pro almost 12 years
  
  @Gryllida, I let sudo grep -r gnome-screensaver / run for 2 hours and other than some errors about reading some devices like /dev/vsock it produced no output.
Old Pro almost 12 years

Alt + F2 did not bring up a command prompt. I do not have xscreensaver or xscreensaver-demo on my system. The command "xscreensaver-demo" failed to run: Failed to execute child process "xscreensaver-demo" (No such file or directory)
Old Pro almost 12 years

I don't have xfce4-settings-manager or xfce-settings-manager on my system. I tried installing gconf-editor and checking disable_lock_screen but that did not stop the screen from automatically locking, as could be predicted from the description: "If true, the panel will not allow a user to lock their screen, by removing access to the lock screen menu entries."
xrfang almost 12 years

@Old Pro - Is there a reason you don't want to install xfce4-settings-manager? After all, you are asking about how to change a desktop setting...
Old Pro almost 12 years

@ire_and_curses I don't mind installing xfce4-settings-manager but the OP didn't mention installing it and the screenshot refers to XScreenSaver which also isn't on my system, so it seems unlikely to help.
Old Pro almost 12 years

I have a "Sessions and Startup Settings" menu item that brings up a "Sessions and Startup" window, but there is no "application autostart" and the only option that is checked is "Prompt on logout". The only thing in $HOME/.config/autostart/ is xfce4-tips-autostart.desktop and all it has is [Desktop Entry] Hidden=true
Admin almost 12 years

Added second possible step for solution.
Old Pro almost 12 years

It had been set to true. I set it to false. That did not prevent gnome-screensaver from automatically starting.