How to remove "phone style" Gnome swipe to unlock
I need to remove the annoying new "locking" screen that shows a giant clock: I can't remove it with just moving the mouse (as with any other desktop environment), the animation is slow, and it isn't asking me for a password!
I managed to disable it, just to discover that now I can't lock my screen on purpose, so I can't go away from the computer.
Just to clarify, I want to:
- After some time the screen could go black, but if I move the mouse or press any key then I can use it directly (like a normal screensaver).
- If I press super-L then it is locked, and I must type the password to unlock (like a normal lock screen).
I found several "solutions", but none seems to work:
- https://ask.fedoraproject.org/en/question/36256/how-do-i-disable-the-gnome-lock-screen/
- https://superuser.com/questions/793039/my-pc-is-not-a-phone-how-do-i-remove-the-swipey-pre-log-in-screen-from-gnome-3
- https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/672/disable-screen-shield/
Open Ubuntu Software and install the GNOME Shell Extension called:
Disable Screen Shield
This works for Ubuntu 18.04
Source:
Disable Screen Shield
Actual solution depends on exact requirements, but these may provide work-arounds (specifically, talking about the gnome 3 screen curtain, illustrated here ):
- if you desire to have a normal basic screen lock enabled, yet don't want the "swipe-up screen curtain", then you may actually just type your password on the curtain screen without clicking/scrolling/mousing/etc, and it will work to unlock the screen. (Note: this assumes that only one account is configured to appear on the login greeter screen.)
- it seems the screen curtain itself can't be disabled (a couple gnome-shell extensions have mixed reports of either no longer working (ubuntu 17+), or not working consistently), so it appears we're stuck with it for now. But given that you can type your password into it, it's mostly just an (unintuitive) aesthetic issue.
- also, Esc will "swipe up" (and down), so you don't have to actually use the mouse.
- there's always KDE (given gnome's usability trajectory, you might give this serious consideration)
Like estebarb previously stated, using lightdm fixes the issue for me on 18.04 LTS and 18.10. However switching to KDE isn't necessary. GDM just needs to be disabled/replaced with lightdm
Just open a terminal and run:
sudo apt-get install lightdm
select lightdm, then press ok
You should be able to see your changes by logging out. Then press Ctrl+Alt+F1 (tty1) and login there. then run:
sudo service gdm3 stop
then start lightdm with:
sudo service lightdm start
if it does jump right into lightdm you might have to press Ctrl+Alt+F7 to move back to tty7.
The "issue" is with GDM. After switching to KDE I changed to Lightdm, and I noted that in Gnome the lock screen was changed as well :D .
So, the solution is not using GDM, for example:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm # For previous Ubuntu default