The desktop

Screensaver, idle and lock

Three separate things happen when a computer is left alone, each with its own timing: a screensaver appears, the screen turns off, and, if you want it, the screen locks.

What happens when you walk away

Both times count from the last key or movement, and zero turns either off. Locking with the screen is off as shipped: turn it on for a machine that is ever left where others can reach it.

alpymist set screensaver.after 3
alpymist set screensaver.blank-after 15
alpymist set screensaver.lock true

The screensaver is a picture, not a lock. The first key or movement takes it away and asks for nothing.

Screensavers

Two ship, drawn on the processor at 12 and 20 frames a second so they cost little battery:

• Mountains: ranges drifting past in mist, with an aircraft crossing and, now and then, a hot-air balloon.
• Starfield: stars streaming past a ship that steers through an asteroid field every minute or so.

Settings › Screensaver chooses one, or A different one each time, which is the default. Screensaver settings… opens the chosen one's own settings: how chunky the picture is, how fast and how smoothly it moves, and what appears in it. Each has a Preview.

alpymist-screensaver                  # show it now
alpymist-screensaver list             # the ones installed
alpymist set screensaver.show starfield
alpymist list screensaver-mountains   # one screensaver's own settings
alpymist set screensaver-mountains.balloon false

A screensaver is a package: a program and a file saying what its settings are. One installed from elsewhere appears in Settings beside these two.

With more than one screen

The screensaver shows on the main screen and the others go dark. Main screen chooses which, and Show it on every screen puts it on them all.

Locking

Super+L locks the screen. So does System › Lock in the menu, suspending, and closing the lid if Power is set to lock.

The lock screen is the login screen: the same picture, the clock, and a card with your name. Type your password and press Enter.

A few things are worth knowing about it:

• It covers every screen the moment it is asked for, and the desktop stays covered even if the lock program itself were to crash.
• While locked, SSH keys that were unlocked are forgotten, and the clipboard history forgets all but its pinned entries unless Settings › Clipboard says to keep it.
• There is no way around it but the password, or a finger if you have turned that on.

Unlocking with a fingerprint

On a laptop with a supported reader, an enrolled finger can stand in for the password in three places, each with a switch of its own in Settings › System. All three are off until you turn them on, and the password goes on working everywhere.

The installer sets the reader up where it finds one it knows. On another machine, doas apk add alpymist-fingerprint first; the reader also needs a driver of its own, which for most is fprintd.

1. Search the menu for Fingerprints, or run alpymist-fingerprint. Choose a finger, add it, and test it. Adding or removing one asks for your password.
2. Turn on the switches you want in Settings › System, or for instance alpymist set system.fingerprint-lock true. Each asks for an administrator's password.

At the lock screen, touch the reader or type the password, whichever you like. After three fingers in a row that are not recognised, the lock stops listening to the reader until it is unlocked with the password.

At an administrator prompt, touch the reader, or type the password and press Enter.

At the login screen, press Enter with nothing typed, then touch the reader within ten seconds. Typing the password logs in as it always did, and does not wait for a finger.

A login by finger leaves your keyring locked. The keyring is opened with your password, and a finger has no password to give. The first program that wants something kept there, such as a saved Wi-Fi or git password or an SSH key's passphrase, asks for your password then. Log in with the password when you would rather not be asked later.

doas in a terminal always takes the password: Alpine builds it without the part a fingerprint would go through. Alpymist's own commands that need an administrator, such as alpymist set for a system setting, ask through the administrator prompt, and so take a finger where that switch is on.

A finger is weaker than a good password in two ways: it can be lifted from a surface, and it cannot be changed. That is why each of these is off until you turn it on.

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