X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach • Hacker News Board

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#21

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

wlll wrote: post #8

hpaavola wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The only issue I've encountered regarding screen locking was that in the past the desktop would be visible for a split second after opening the laptop lid and before the screenlock is displayed. Haven't seen that behaviour in couple years, I think. I use latest Ubuntu at home and latest Ubuntu LTS at work. Typically Lenovo and HP laptops, some Asus Zenbooks also in the past.

Interestingly this has started happening on my mac, as of a few years ago. Obviously unrelated to Linux.

Is it really unrelated? I dunno, maybe my distaste for certain development styles is leading me to see things that aren't there, but I fell like the Linux Desktop hacked-together "it's good enough for me" way of doing things is creeping into paid OSs like Mac and Windows.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#22

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:36 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #19

uasm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 2020 and locking your screen on Linux is unreliable. It's difficult to promote Linux as a worthy consumer desktop OS alternative.

Yes, it's imperfect and irritating in many ways. Many other actually (BT, Wifi, battery life, they all have their problems). But your alternative is one totally locked on ecosystem and one provided with embedded spywares. It's good enough, and since we are not giving millions of dollars to the editors like we do with products disrespecting us, I understand we can't ask for perfection.

> It's good enough

I've been hearing that for between 15 and 20 years now. I believe this mentality is part of the reason it never seems to get any better.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#23

Post by stabbles » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #13

kstenerud wrote: post #2

My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines: * The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed. * The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though. * The screen turns on after the lid is opened, b…

* The lock screen pops up, requests a password, and disappears after you enter it, but you find that your password and enter key also made their way into the foreground text field. I love linux, but it's not wart-free.

Did that really happen to you or are you confusing it with this issue on MacOS?

https://twitter.com/BenoitLetondor/status/939127296266588160

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#24

Post by wlll » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:40 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #21

wlll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly this has started happening on my mac, as of a few years ago. Obviously unrelated to Linux.

Is it really unrelated? I dunno, maybe my distaste for certain development styles is leading me to see things that aren't there, but I fell like the Linux Desktop hacked-together "it's good enough for me" way of doing things is creeping into paid OSs like Mac and Windows.

Mac OS has gone downhill for sure, but I meant unrelated technically.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#25

Post by rvz » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #2

My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines: * The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed. * The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though. * The screen turns on after the lid is opened, b…

Seriously, If these distros still can't come together and get something as simple as screen locking right and consistent on X11, Wayland with a DE like GNOME or KDE, etc then it is difficult to recommend / market any Linux desktop distro to a typical consumer. It really is one of the smallest issues that would turn off a user moving to Linux, just to get work done.

I wouldn't blame them if I see any of them ending up staying on Windows or moving to macOS or outright iPadOS.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#26

Post by catblast » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:48 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #16

kstenerud wrote: post #2

My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines: * The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed. * The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though. * The screen turns on after the lid is opened, b…

+1. I'll add: * The screen locks, unlock, but the network card cannot wake up anymore and requires a reboot. * The screen locks, let you enter things, but doesn't seem to react, then suddenly, replay all the things for 20 seconds in 1 seconds, and displays an error message * the screen locks, but you can see the unlock screen for a few seconds when you wake the laptop up

The first 2 sound more related to suspend rather than screen locking.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#27

Post by MisterTea » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #11

MisterTea wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of what you describe isn't the screen lock but sounds more like something isn't communicating system events properly. That or bad hardware with poor open source driver vendor support. Also, this is why I don't use Linux any more. It's grown into a dumpster fire of ad-hoc patches from big corps looking to hammer every last drop of cloud server performance or poorly designed desktops made by people who obviously d…

> or poorly designed desktops made by people who obviously don't use them. Do you mean the design part or the coding part? From my limited experience desktops are made by contributors and volunteers work on whatever affects them the most or some might work on cool stuff. It is what it is, without someone with money hiring a large dev team and foucssing on user tickets it will never change. As a developer I prefer som…

Both. glibc... No. And without boring you with anecdote I can sum it up by saying: Linux DE's feel like cheap Windows XP or OSX knockoffs. What's worse is every DE and their forks have their own duplicate DE companion programs such as explorer and notepad clones. I liken them to a Potemkin village; well polished but once you start looking behind things...

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#28

Post by rauhl » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #2

My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines: * The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed. * The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though. * The screen turns on after the lid is opened, b…

Oddly enough, I don’t have any of those issues anymore. Screen locking tends to just work these days.

What doesn’t work well anymore is user switching: when I switch virtual consoles to either another user or the gdm screen the keyboard stops registering and the mouse gets slower and slower until it stops completely. Then some time later it starts responding again. The length of time it is unresponsive seems to be proportional to the length of time the virtual console has been suspended. The system continues to be available via SSH. I suspect that the issue has something to do with a huge backlog of invalid events being delivered, but I don’t know for sure. It may also somehow have something to do with the NVIDIA proprietary drivers. I kinda blame dbus/systemd, because it first started happening at the same time as I started using systemd, but I don’t actually know that.

It’s annoying because I’ve grown to rely on fast user switching over the past decade or more.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#29

Post by hpkuarg » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #22

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's imperfect and irritating in many ways. Many other actually (BT, Wifi, battery life, they all have their problems). But your alternative is one totally locked on ecosystem and one provided with embedded spywares. It's good enough, and since we are not giving millions of dollars to the editors like we do with products disrespecting us, I understand we can't ask for perfection.

> It's good enough I've been hearing that for between 15 and 20 years now. I believe this mentality is part of the reason it never seems to get any better.

Funnily enough, my 3-year-old Macbook Pro just died, and times being what they are with your usual build-to-order options being severely backordered, I stepped into a local store and bought a laptop off the shelf -- an LG Gram 17.

It's not even a brand that's well-known for Linux compatibility (like Thinkpads), but all I've had to do to get Lubuntu 18.04 running more or less flawlessly was disable Secure Boot in the BIOS. Wifi, sound, and webcam all worked without needing tinkering. Bluetooth appears to work based on it being detected, but I haven't tried pairing anything yet. The only thing I hear doesn't work is the fingerprint sensor, but I wasn't going to use it, anyway.

Suspend on lid down and wake on lid up hasn't been an issue at all. I'm actually very pleasantly surprised at how well this LTS version from 2018 runs on a 2020 model laptop.

Re: X11 screen locking: a secure and modular approach

#30

Post by beeforpork » Tue, Mar 31, 2020, 1:53 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #2

My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines: * The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed. * The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed. * The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though. * The screen turns on after the lid is opened, b…

I have encountered another one, a lot of fun:

* The screen turns on when the lid is opened, the login prompt appears, but the backlight is still off so you cannot see anything (except by using a super strong flashlight).