up vote 17 down vote favorite
6
share [g+] share [fb]

Is there any way to make the login screen from a locked session (either by using Ctrl+Alt+L or from a screen timeout) look like the login screen when you're starting a new session? I hate that everything on the lock screen aside from the password input is black.

link|improve this question
83% accept rate
It's worth noting that in 11.10/Oneiric/GNOME3/whatever that the lock screen now uses your desktop background instead of a black screen. – zpletan Oct 25 '11 at 19:11
@Zpletan it's still just as ugly.. – Alvar Feb 21 at 10:27
feedback

3 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

GDM

You can't make the lock screen look like the login screen.

However, you can use a theme for the lock screen. There are quite a few available at gnome-look.org. Here's an example.

link|improve this answer
Thanks, I'll definitely look into those! – Chris Kerrigan May 12 '11 at 5:04
@Chris you're welcome. – K. Hendrik May 12 '11 at 5:06
I'm sure it's possible to create a lock screen theme that looks like the login screen. Sure, you can't expect to be able to see other users directly from the lock screen, but that doesn't mean recreating the look isn't possible, right? – Firefeather May 12 '11 at 19:13
1  
@Firefeather yes that's true what i meant was that it will not be exactly like the login. – K. Hendrik May 12 '11 at 22:15
Its not working in ubuntu 10.10 – karthick87 Jun 18 '11 at 13:11
feedback
up vote 4 down vote

GDM

The answer may be a little bit late, but aside from setting the theme of the actual unlock dialog you can also set the background (i.e. the black space around the dialog) to whatever image you like. Just run the following command in the terminal:

sudo gconftool-2 --direct --config-source xml:readwrite:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults --set /desktop/gnome/background/picture_filename --type string /usr/share/backgrounds/Holes_by_FireCobold.jpg

Replace the last path in the command with the path to the image you desire to use. Do not forget to restart your desktop session (or try to restart gconfd-2 by killing it, at least).

EDIT: unless you configured the background of the login screen (e.g. via Ubuntu Tweak), the above command will also change it.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 3 down vote

LightDM

This is a work in progress for 12.04, here is the bug report.

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.