On my Windows 7 32bit machine I'm running a VirtualBox instance of Xubuntu 9.10 32bit and I've noticed that the screen saver on the virtual box instance of Xubuntu never becomes active despite setting the timeout to 1 minute.
I also have a Kubuntu 9.10 instance that I also run on VirtualBox on this machine and this does actually become idle and activate the screen saver, locking the session which is the thing that I am trying to achieve.
I'm wondering if there are any suggestions for things to either check or change to get the system to become idle (it's a very bare installation, pretty much just the bare installation and Google Chrome) or whether there is some other method that I could achieve the same effect (have the system lock after 1 minute of inactivity) without relying on the screen saver?
Best Answer
ps x | grep xscreensaverwill tell you if the screensaver is running. Just runningxscreensaverin a terminal is enough to start it up, if not. The configuration which sets timeout and locking behavior etc. should be customized in $HOME/.xscreensaverAn alternate locking program is xlock.
Just to be clear: xscreensaver should be constantly running if you want your session to auto-lock - it is the program that detects that you have been idle, locks the screen, and displays the screensaver.