Suspend/Resume X sessions?

[Christopher Browne]

On 3/3/06, William O'Higgins Witteman <william.ohiggins-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 03, 2006 at 09:09:01PM -0500, James Knott wrote:
> >William O'Higgins Witteman wrote:
> >> Is it possible to log out of an X session, keeping everything active,
> >> but making the machine available for someone else, and then later, log
> >> back in to the same state?
> >
> >You don't have to log out, though you might want to lock the desktop.
> >Linux supports up to 6 independent desktops.
>
> I have now seen this suggestion twice - how do you "lock" your desktop?
> I do it constantly at work, but I don't know how to do so on Linux.

It's not a Linux thing; it is an X Window System thing.

The X Window System has, courtesy of Jamie Zawinski, the most
incredibly sophisticated screensaver system around.

http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

It'll run on any system that has X, including Unix, BSD, Linux, VMS,
and even MacOS-X.

Mischevious people have added incredible varieties of modules to do
clever display "hacks" of one sort or another.

Commonly, you'll run xscreensaver, and configure it to run xlock after
a few minutes.

Or, lock immediately, via
$ xscreensaver-command -lock

If someone "Presses Any Key," they'll get a login prompt.  If they
know YOUR password, they can get back to your session.

If they don't, they can enter their ID and password, and start what
seems to be a separate X session.  Your session will still be
around...

I frequently see new xscreensaver modules that I have never seen
before.  There are literally hundreds of them.  Some simulate video
games (on old systems, sometimes complete with intentionally fuzzy
screens).  Another simulates various equivalents to the BSOD.  There
are flying toasters, tributes to elder screensavers.  There are
literally hundreds of modules to do different clever things.
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