Feature request, but must be universallly accepted by ALL blanker authors

[Vladimir Dergachev]

On Sat, 3 Oct 2020, Gene Heskett wrote:

> On Saturday 03 October 2020 00:39:27 Vladimir Dergachev wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 2 Oct 2020, Gene Heskett wrote:
>>> Greetings x-people;
>>>
>>> The LinuxCNC people have just brought it up from Debian wheezy to
>>> buster for a base install.
>>>
>>> But the security paranoia is going to get someone maimed or killed.
>>>
>>> Someone has decreed that the screen blanker must be subject to a new
>>> login before anything can be done about a runaway machine with
>>> enough horsepower at its disposal to kill.
>>
>> Just to chime in, this is not an X problem per se, but rather the
>> desktop environment.
>>
> Agreed.
>
>> X does not have a utility to ask for your password - just a way to
>> blank the screen and turn off the monitor.
>>
>> If you were to prevent X from blanking the screen, then what would
>> likely happen is that it will not go blank, but instead you will see
>> either a screensaver or a password prompt from whatever screen locker
>> your desktop environment is using.
>
> Which for xfce4 is light-locker. But removing it with apt destroys the
> system by removeing 70+ other packages including ours.  Thats not an
> acceptable solution.

This is surprising. It is hard for me to see why your package - or any 
package - would depend on a screensaver. I would normally expect only the 
meta package that pulls in the full environment to depend on it.


>
> FWIW, I have tried mightily, to lengthen the intervals from 10 minutes on
> this stretch install running TDE. But something resets it to 10 minutes
> before the 10 minutes is up. So xset is neutered and worthless. Frankly,
> linux is as bad as winderz in determining what you can and cannot do. If
> there was an alternative that put the machines control back in the uses
> hands, I'd jump on it like stink on a skunk.

Looking on github, I found the following file

https://github.com/the-cavalry/light-locker/blob/master/src/light-locker-command.c

which suggests there are several ways to disable it, including one where 
you can simulate user activity.

This was just a quick look, it would probably be best to talk to 
light-locker developers.

best

Vladimir Dergachev