Fedora 9: Root-Lock Your Desktop Screen

Am sure you have heard a lot of insecurities of running root as the default login user with GNOME or X. Maybe some Fedora users feel more in control of their system when running root as their default login user. Problem is, you cannot lock your desktop screen when you logged on as root.

Here's how to fix that.

Lock Desktop Screen While Being Root

Desktop screen can easily be secured and locked while you are gone and away from your desktop table by simply doing xlock fedora installation.

Xlockmore is a linux desktop screen saver linux application. Xlockmore helps securing your desktop privacy by locking and securing it with your screen saver with a username and passord. Xlock offers a lot of desktop screen saver ranging from bubbles, 3Ds, arts, animations and more. However, Xlock rpm package is not included with Fedora 9 shipments.

Fedora 9: Xlockmore Screen Installation

To install xlock more, simply launch yum to retrieve xlockmore from Fedora extra repos

# yum -y install xlockmore.i386 xlockmore-gtk.i386

Xlock Setup and Execution.


To create a single click xlock screen saver activation, create a shortcut by simply right-clicking the task bar and Adding a new shortcut command. Remember to supply a name to identify your shortcut. From there, the Xlock binary can be supplied by a similar binary command like

/usr/bin/xlock

You can supply xlock mode parameter as well, say for a pacman screen saver, the binary command should be like

/usr/bin/xlock -mode pacman

Click OK to save.

You can choose from several xlock screen saver mode shown below

ball    Shows bouncing balls.

bat     Shows bouncing flying bats.

biof    Shows 3D bioform.

blot    Shows Rorschachâs ink blot test.

bouboule Shows Mimiâs bouboule of moving stars.

bounce  Shows bouncing footballs.

braid   Shows random braids and knots.

bubble  Shows popping bubbles.

bubble3d Shows Richard Jonesâs GL bubbles.  May not be available depending on how it was configured.

bug     Shows Palmiterâs bug evolution and a garden of Eden.

clock   Shows Packardâs oclock.

coral   Shows a coral reef.

crystal Shows polygons in 2D plane groups.

daisy   Shows a meadow of daisies.

dclock  Shows a floating digital clock or message.

deco    Shows art as ugly as sin.

demon   Shows Griffeathâs cellular automata.

dilemma Shows Lloydâs Prisonerâs Dilemma simulation.

discrete  Shows various discrete maps.

drift   Shows cosmic drifting flame fractals.

cage    Shows the Impossible Cage, an Escher-like GL scene.  May not be available depending on how it  was configured.

euler2d Shows a simulation of 2D incompressible inviscid fluid.

eyes    Shows eyes following a bouncing grelb.

fadeplot Shows a fading plot of sine squared.

fiberlamp Shows a Fiber Optic Lamp.

fire    Shows a 3D fire-like image.  May not be available depending on how it was configured.

flag    Shows a waving flag image.  This may be text or a graphic image.  Default text is the hostname and operating system.

flame   Shows cosmic flame fractals.

flow    Shows dynamic strange attractors.

forest  Shows binary trees of a fractal forest.

fzort   Shows a metallic-looking fzort.

galaxy  Shows crashing spiral galaxies.

gears   Shows GLâs gears.  May not be available depending on how it was configured.

glplanet Animates texture mapped sphere (planet)

goop    Shows goop from a lava lamp.

grav    Shows orbiting planets.

helix   Shows string art.

hop     Shows real plane iterated fractals.

Success, have fun while your desktop screen saver is active.