> From: Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx> > Subject: Re: Lock Screen as root > On Fri, 2006-05-26 at 22:24, Tim wrote: > > > > But if this is so dangerous, why not prevent graphical root logins > > > altogether? > > > > Some distros do that. And it is possible to set up Fedora that way > as > > well - it stops a graphical "login", but it doesn't stop a textual > login > > from starting X after the login. > > > > One reason why distros don't do that is the number of users > insisting > > that they should be able to. > > And the seriously strange concept of having GUI admin tools but > not being able to run them from a menu, or the likely-risk-prone > concept of having special authentication techniques to start > them from a window manager running as a different user. > > -- > Les Mikesell > lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx With my thanks to Jon McCann, I found the answer here: http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/faq.html#root-lock with Jon's note that gnome-screensaver behaves as xscreensaver does. This makes sense and explains what appears at first blush to be misbehavior. As an aside, I also tried this under KDE, and discovered that I _can_ lock the screen while logged in as root. I haven't been able to explain that one yet. But if I discover an answer, I'll post. Erik
