By default, locking the screen in Ubuntu 17.10 also immediately blanks it. This seems to go back to gnome-screensaver by default blanking whenever it's told to lock (with gnome-screensaver-command -l or the keyboard shortcut.)
What I would like to do is to only lock my screen, without having it go blank as well. The reason is partly aesthetic but also to save time when returning to unlock the workstation once again. This question asks the same thing but without a solution.
This question addressed the same problem a few years back, where it could be worked around with a script that immediately after the lock command, sent an automated key press (with xdotool) to unblank the screen again.
Unfortunately this does not work for me at all with 17.10. In Wayland, I can't find that anything happens at all, it simply locks and blanks. I've tried switching to Xorg, where the scripted key press does work to unblank the screen, but only for a few seconds before it's engaged once more and the screen goes dark. I suppose one could have the xdotool keep repeating the key press and see if that prevents the blanking, I made a brief attempt at this (xdotool sleep 1 key --repeat 225 --repeat-delay 4 Ctrl) which did not really work. It also seems fairly bizarre to have to do that.
Is there really no straightforward way in Ubuntu 17.10 to simply lock the screen and have it display something - anything - instead of blanking out?
