On Wed, 2003-06-04 at 16:40, Eric Robinson wrote: > Hey, here's something that has annoyed me to no end, and I'm sure it is > just because I don't know what I am doing, but... > > I have installed various versions of Red Hat over the years, from 5 > through 9. The GUI has gotten better, but the "Lock Screen" feature has > never worked on any machine, with any version (okay, maybe once, a long > time ago, but never since). I select it and nothing happens. It's > getting kind of funny. I sometimes imagine that in a few years I'll end > up installing Red Hat 15, and the "Lock Screen" feature will still not > work. What must I do to get this working? >
Works fine for me. Using it many times a day. Question 6 from the XScreensaver FAQ * When I'm logged in as root, xscreensaver won't lock my screen! Don't log in as root. Please note that xscreensaver works fine as a screen saver when you are logged in as root: it will not, however, lock your screen when you are logged in as root. This is for good and insurmountable security reasons. In order for it to be safe for xscreensaver to be launched by xdm, certain precautions had to be taken, among them that xscreensaver never runs as root. In particular, if it is launched as root (as xdm is likely to do), xscreensaver will disavow its privileges, and switch itself to a safe user id (such as ``nobody''.) An implication of this is that if you log in as root on the console, xscreensaver will refuse to lock the screen (because it can't tell the difference between root being logged in on the console, and a normal user being logged in on the console but xscreensaver having been launched by the xdm ``Xsetup'' file.) The solution to this is simple: you shouldn't be logging in on the console as root in the first place! (What, are you crazy or something?) Proper Unix hygiene dictates that you should log in as yourself, and su to root as necessary. People who spend their day logged in as root are just begging for disaster. Question 28 from XScreensaver FAQ * What's the difference between xscreensaver and xlock? XScreenSaver is a screen saver and a screen locker; XLock is only a locker. XScreenSaver is modular and extensible; XLock is monolithic. XScreenSaver has a secure and auditable design; XLock... doesn't. More details can be found on the XScreenSaver versus XLock page. _______________________________________________ RLUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.rlug.org/mailman/listinfo/rlug
