Lock Screen question

[moto526]

Okay I hope I am posting this in the right forum...

So I used the software updater and now I am all up to date but when my screen saver kicks in and I lock the screen I go to the enter password prompt and the screen changed. I went to a cool looking screen before and now I have this black screen. Is there a way to get back my cool blue screen that had more information?

Thanks in advance!

[Void Main]

On your menu you can set your screensaver/lock preferences:

f->"System"->"Preferences"->"Screensaver"

Or am I misunderstanding your question? Make sure you have the screensaver packages installed:

xscreensaver-base
xscreensaver-extras
xscreensaver-gl-extras

[moto526]

I have a screen saver that is working....
When I first installed the os it worked, when the screen locked becasue the screen saver turned on it went to the welcome screen like windows. Then I ran that update in applications>system tools>software updater and now when the screen saver kicks in and locks the desktop it goes to a black screen when I move the mouse. It does give me the option to log back in but I would like to get that welcome screen back instead of that black screen with a little white box to enter my password.

I also looked at the system>administration>lock screen and it has the correct login screen that has not changed, just when the screen saver kicks in and then I want to enter my password.

Here is a show of my screen saver, am I missing anything?

[Void Main]

Wow, that's completely different than my screensaver preferences:

http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/i/screensaver.png

How did you get to your screensaver preferences? The one that comes up for me is the same as if you ran the "xscreensaver-demo" command.

[moto526]

System>preferences>Screen saver

How are you running the comands?

Don't forget I'm a neewby...

[Void Main]

xscreensaver-demo comes up (as you can see in my screenshot) when I click on the same menu item you click. However, you can run the command manually either from a terminal window (shell prompt) or by pressing "ALT+F2" which should bring up a run box and type in the command name there. It's better to do it at a terminal if you want to be able to see any error messages that may come up. Open a terminal and type in "xscreensaver-demo" then press ENTER. I asked before if you had the xscreensaver packages installed, you may not. You can look in Synaptic or the Yum Extender to see if they are installed or at a terminal type:

Code: Select all

rpm -qa | grep xscreensaver


and see what comes up.

Also, I think I finally understand what you are asking for. Are you saying when your screen is locked and you get the unlock prompt you want it to look like the initial logon prompt? That might be a little difficult because they are two different applications. The initial login prompt is GDM (display manager) where the screen lock is actually your screen saver locking the screen and asking for the password. They are two different functions. The first one is a login prompt and the other one is an unlock prompt (you are already logged in).

Of course if the screensaver can't be manipulated to get the screen you want you can always download the source code and hack it so it does look like what you want. :) That's the nice thing about Linux, infinitely customizable because you have the source.

[moto526]

Well you have the idea of what I am trying to get back to...

You see it went to the blue screen before I ran the software update. After I ran the software update and restared ever since my lock out screen turned black. I used to have that blue screen with the options and all I had to do was enter my password to get back in same as now but the screen changed.

It is like in windows when you lock the desktop you go to a screen with the user account icon and you click on that to enter your password and get back in to your desktop. There are ways to set it up to look like the login for windows 2000 or the new way for XP. That is the way this is now, before when the screen saver started and locked the desktop, when I went to enter my passwrd I had a nice blue screen (like the welcome screen) to enter my password. Now I have, like a windows 2000 login box with a black background.

Here is my error:

[Void Main]

Hmmm, I'm not sure. I don't ever remember having a blue background on the screen unlock prompt. That doesn't mean there never was one, I just don't remember seeing it. I can also tell you one other thing, this ain't Windows and comparing things to how they work in Windows won't help me any because I don't use Windows. :) The last version I had any heavy dealings with was NT 4.0 and I'm still trying to get that smell off. :)

[moto526]

Hmmm, I'm not sure. I don't ever remember having a blue background on the screen unlock prompt. That doesn't mean there never was one, I just don't remember seeing it. I can also tell you one other thing, this ain't Windows and comparing things to how they work in Windows won't help me any because I don't use Windows. The last version I had any heavy dealings with was NT 4.0 and I'm still trying to get that smell off.

Aww come on now, windows is not that bad... What do you use at work?

I like both Windows and Fedora...
I am thinking of switching my mom's computer to Fedora, then she can go crazy.... and that reminds me of another question. How is setting up a dial up connection for fedora? That would be my only drawback... (My only one!)


Okay back to me, when it locks the screen now I get that little window and now it has the blue in it and my user name, I guess I can live with that...

[Void Main]

Aww come on now, windows is not that bad... What do you use at work?

Yes it is that bad. I use Fedora on my desktops and servers at work (actually I also run Debian Linux on some old Alpha and Sun servers). I currently do network security for a company with around 60,000 desktops. Of course most of those are running Windows loaded down with unbelievable amounts of malware.

I like both Windows and Fedora...

If you stick with Linux and actually invest time in learning it I can just about guarantee you that your liking for Linux will steadily increase and Windows will steadily decrease. But that's all up to you. I have used both Linux and Windows from their very beginnings and I finally wised up and ditched Windows completey a few years back. My first dealings with MS was back in the DOS v2.x days and I was heavy into it all the way through NT4. In fact I also actually used Xenix which was a version of UNIX that Microsoft bought and used to write DOS on.

I was the senior systems engineer for both Windows and UNIX/Linux at a very well known company. There came a point that I hated Windows servers and anything Microsoft so much that I swore that any job I had from that point forward would not require me to use Windows or any other Microsoft product in any way. So far I've been at my new job 3 years and still haven't had to touch Windows. I have around 10 machines here at home, not one MS product on any of them. My entire family has used Red Hat/Fedora exclusively here at home for a good 5 years now. Everything was so manual in Windows. Point and click, point and click, it's no wonder so many people get Carpal Tunnel. I like to write a script, throw it in a cron job and go riding the rest of the day. I paid good money for my computers, I want them to do as much of the work as possible so I can do other things.

I am thinking of switching my mom's computer to Fedora, then she can go crazy.... and that reminds me of another question. How is setting up a dial up connection for fedora? That would be my only drawback... (My only one!)

Nothing to it as long as you have a supported modem (not a "winmodem").

Okay back to me, when it locks the screen now I get that little window and now it has the blue in it and my user name, I guess I can live with that...

What did you do to fix it? None of my servers even have any sort of graphical environment installed on them. :)

[moto526]

Well it is not totally fixed, but I guess I can live with it...

I didn't do anything really, I have to unplug it for a few hours yesterday because we moved. Maybe the power off for about 4 hours changed something...

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I think I am going to install Fedora on my windows 2000 macine, that should make you smile...

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I am going to dig out my Linux for Dummies ebook and start to read.