How to lock the screen in XUbuntu 16.04
Solution 1
Here's the default Xubuntu setup:
- light-locker is set to autostart because it must be running in the background to work
- Keyboard shortcuts for Ctrl+Alt+Del and Ctrl+Alt+L are configured that call
xflock4
-
xflock4
calls light-locker to lock the screen
If you run xflock4
in a terminal and nothing happens, odds are light-locker isn't running. The solution more or less is to restore the default settings:
-
Remove light-locker-settings package. It's not necessary because screen lock settings are handled by Xfce Power Manager (as you can see in the screenshot you posted)
sudo apt remove light-locker-settings
-
Make sure essential packages are installed (just to be safe)
sudo apt install light-locker xfce4-power-manager xfce4-session
-
Reset light-locker settings
sudo dpkg-reconfigure light-locker
-
Remove any autostart overrides
rm ~/.config/autostart/light-locker.desktop
(This can be removed because the light-locker package installs a default autostart file here: /etc/xdg/autostart/light-locker.desktop)
-
Reset the LockCommand setting in case it's been overrriden
xfconf-query -c xfce4-session -p /general/LockCommand -r
(
xflock4
is just a shell script that will first look at LockCommand to see what command to run, falling back to light-locker if it isn't set) -
Reset keyboard shortcuts
-
If you're not worried about losing any other custom keyboard shortcuts, you can just reset them all to default:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts -p / -rR
-
Otherwise, these are the specific keyboard shortcuts Xubuntu sets by default for screen locking:
xfconf-query -c xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts -p "/commands/custom/<Primary><Alt>Delete" -s "xflock4" -n -t string xfconf-query -c xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts -p "/commands/custom/<Primary><Alt>l" -s "xflock4" -n -t string xfconf-query -c xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts -p "/commands/default/<Primary><Alt>Delete" -s "xflock4" -n -t string xfconf-query -c xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts -p "/commands/default/<Primary><Alt>l" -s "xflock4" -n -t string
-
Log out and log back in. This will make sure light-locker autostart is working and also may be necessary for the keyboard shortcuts to refresh.
-
Make sure light-locker is running
$ ps -e | grep light-locker 1869 ? 00:00:00 light-locker
-
Make sure
xflock4
locks the screenxflock4
-
Make sure the keyboard shortcuts to lock the screen work
- Ctrl+Alt+Del
- Ctrl+Alt+L
-
Lastly, if you want the screen to automatically lock after a certain time
Open the menu > Settings > Power Manager > Security
Automatically lock the session > When the screensaver is activated
If you want to have a real screensaver, you'll need to install and configure
xscreensaver
orgnome-screensaver
. Otherwise if you're okay with a blank screen, go to the Display tab in Power Manager and adjust the times as desired
Solution 2
To lock the screen in xubuntu:
Ctrl+Alt+L
Note: The time os the button matters, try it several times to get it right.
Image: see line xflock4 Ctrl+Alt+L
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Chris Dodd
Updated on September 18, 2022Comments
-
Chris Dodd over 1 year
I've been trying to figure out how to lock the screen in XUbuntu 16.04 and I can't seem to make anything work. Various posts suggest using the settings under 'Power Manager' and 'Light Locker Settings', which have selectors to enable and disable the screensaver, and I've tried all possible combinations of them, but none of them do anything.
Other places suggest running
xflock4
or hittingctrl-alt-del
(which on the keyboard shortcuts runs xflock4), but that also does nothing. There's also no documentation forxflock4
(man xflock4 says "No manual entry" andxflock4 --help
does nothing.)Update
After poking around things for awhile, I fould
dm-tool
which has alock
option. Runningdm-tool lock
from a terminal successfully locks the screen. I can also set the keyboard shortcuts to make ctrl-alt-del rundm-tool lock
, so I can now lock the screen with a key combo.However, I still can't figure out how to get it to lock the screen after a timeout...
-
Chris Dodd about 7 yearsNo effect. The keyboard display on my machine only shows Ctrl+Alt+Delete for xlock4 (which also has no effect)
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George Udosen about 7 yearsplease post an image if possible...
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sjuk about 4 yearsThank you very much. This was very helpful especially step 11. Because it describes the relation between security and display settings. I was confused about the "When screensaver is acivated" and there is no screensaver installed. But when realizing that black sreen on display tab is meant by that all made sense to me. :-)
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bmaupin about 4 years@sjuk It's actually much simpler than it seems!
xflock4
is just a shell script that will first try the command set in LockCommand (in newer versions), then xscreensaver, then light-locker, then gnome-screensaver: git.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-session/tree/scripts/xflock4