Every time I turn away from my Linux system for even five minutes it switches to sleep mode and then requires my password to unlock. This is a huge pain. How can I disable this security feature entirely, or at least have the delay be longer?
Dialing in the precise security settings each of us wants for our computer can be tricky. Typically you have to use a computer for a few weeks to really understand if it’s too quick to lock, too open, unlocked through lunch, or somewhere neatly in the middle. This is true for every smart device too, actually, from your smartphone to your tablet, Mac, PC, even a Chromebook has settings and options. Not to mention Linux systems, which have had strong security since the first boot.
There are a couple of relevant settings in this context, starting with your password: Is it good, complex, and hard to guess? Great, that means it’s probably a pain to enter each time your screen locks up, right? In addition to that, there’s sleep versus logout, which aren’t the same thing. Biggest difference? If your system is asleep, all your apps and programs are still running, but if you log out, everything shuts down and will need to be restarted when you log in again.
Okay, enough tutorial. Let’s get into it!
WHERE TO FIND SCREEN LOCK SETTINGS IN LINUX
Modern Linux systems have nice Settings utilities and that’s what you need to fine-tune your sleep security settings. Start in an Ubuntu computer by using the handy “Settings” shortcut from the top right of the menubar:
The Settings program remembers the last thing you checked so it’s hard to know where it’ll start out. Mine is on Appearance:
Lots of great settings to adjust for your own preferences, but let’s instead go to “Privacy” on the left side…
Almost there. Click on “Screen Lock” and, finally, we’re in the right place to make some changes:
So what should you change? Let’s go through the list…
WHAT LINUX SCREEN LOCK SETTINGS TO CHANGE
The first thing you can change is how long you can be inactive before the screen blanks. I like to think of it as “time to sleep”. It has quite a few possible settings:
Unless your system is in a secure location, I don’t recommend choosing “Never” (and probably not even then) but if you’re finding that your current setting is just too short, change it up to 10 minutes or even 15 minutes. Plenty of time to walk into the breakroom and grab a cup of coffee without it going to sleep, right?
Note that “Never” is redundant with you simply disabling Automatic Screen Lock, another setting that I don’t recommend you enable. Now that I think about it, do you want your Linux system logged in and unattended while you’re heading to the breakroom for a cuppa joe?
Perhaps more important than the screen blank delay is the “Automatic Screen Lock Delay” and, again, there are a lot of options:
At the maximum, you can set it to an hour, which, if you have your screen blank set to 10 minutes, means that there’s a 50 minute window when the computer looks off and secure but is open to any user with a keyboard tap or mouse wiggle. Okay? Then set it as desired. I recommend something more like 10 minutes for screen blank and another 5 minutes for screen lock. You can tweak your settings as desired, and now you know where to change ’em!
Pro Tip: I’ve been writing about Linux since the dawn of the OS. Please do check out my extensive Linux help area for lots of additional tutorial content while you’re visiting. Thanks!
Whether in Windows, or one of my GNU/Linux distributions, I disable screen blanking/locking only when performing some procedure that will require a long period of inactivity as I wait for it to complete. This does not happen very often, and I keep the Settings interface running minimized to the taskbar, so I don’t forget to revert the changed settings when I’m done. My devices all reside in my home (I’m Retired) so physically they are all fairly secure, but I still enable access security measures in the event of theft. There is much more I do to protect the security of my personal data on my devices, but access security/control is the first step. I consider signing in after the screen locks a small price to pay for the security it provides. I don’t change the screen-blanking delay. As far as I’m concerned, it’s O.K. as is but I do change the screen-locking setting to ten minutes. I can always lock my computer manually if I walk away from it. I don’t recall if I have changed the hot-key combination to lock the screen in my GNU/Linux distributions, but on all my PCs OSs, pressing WinKey+L locks the screen. I think my GNU/Linux distributions call this key the SuperKey. We all must decide for ourselves what security measures are needed, and how tightly we should lock down out systems. A work scenario is a very different thing, so these decisions are made by our employers, and we must deal with them.
My2Cents,
Ernie