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One of the most annoying features of Backtrack 5 is that you can no longer lock the screen when you want to go away from your keyboard. In this post, I will give a Howto on an alternative way to lock your screen when you are logged in as root. One thing to point out is that if you look up the documentation of xscreensaver-command or gnome-screensaver, the developers state that the reason a screen doesn’t lock as root is because it is a bad security practice to be logged in as root. Although I agree with them, it is an ever worse practice that one cannot lock their screen as root, so shame on those lazy developers. Here is an alternative way to lock your screen when you are away from your keyboard in Backtrack 5 gnome edition:

1. Install xlockmore via the command line by running the command – aptitude install xlockmore
2. Go to System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts
3. Find the shortcut labeled “Lock screen”
4. Click on it and set the shortcut to disabled by pressing the backspace button
5. At the bottom of the screen click “Add”
6. For the name enter in something like “Lockscreen”
7. For the command enter in “xlock”
8. Click Apply
9. Click on the newly created menu item you made “Lockscreen” at the bottom of the list and press CRL+ALT+L or whatever you want to bind your screen locking key to be.
10. Click Close
11. Vuala! Now you can lock your screen by pressing the key you bound.

Notes: I had this freeze once for me before, but after the initial installation I rebooted and I never got another frozen screen.

Hope that helps! Enjoy!