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I need to disable the Ctrl-Alt-L key combination to use it for IntelliJ (an IDE). I have managed to do it on my desktop computer which currently runs 17.10, but I cannot figure out how to do it on 16.04 which my XPS 13 Developer Edition runs.

I have found Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts, and disabled the System -> Lock Screen entry. Still locks.

I tried reassigning to Show/Hide onscreen keyboard. Toggles on screen keyboard and still locks.

I tried re-reassigning to System -> Lock Screen. Still locks (that was expected though) but now the login dialogue is very simple. A white rectangle with a password field at the top.

I tried re-disabling it. Same login dialogue as before.

As the screen does not lock when entering the key in the Shortcuts field, it seems that this is essentially working as designed, but there is a problem with telling the locking process that it should not do anything.

How should I approach this?

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
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    I don't have Unity to try it out myself, but it may be an option that can be modified in the unity-tweak-tool application. If you don't have it installed, you can install it with sudo apt install unity-tweak-tool. – Dan Feb 12 '18 at 13:09
  • @Dan Thanks for your suggestion. I could remove the locking, so it just goes blank, but not completely. It sounds like you are on to something, though. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 12 '18 at 14:25
  • @ThorbjørnRavnAndersen have you tried disabling the screensaver here – ukos Feb 19 '18 at 14:44
  • @ukos Thank you for your suggestion. It appears the linked page is for 11.04 and not my 16.04, and the functionality has changed in the five years that have passed. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 19 '18 at 15:34
  • I would recommend, switching to gnome anyway since next LTS will be on gnome and you would search for a new solution then. – ukos Feb 19 '18 at 15:36
  • @ThorbjørnRavnAndersen must be an ubuntu thing. I just tested on debian (gnome) and the shortcut does not exist there. Maybe there is a duplicate assignment somewhere. – ukos Feb 19 '18 at 16:32
  • @ukos I agree. This is why I asked here instead of on the general Unix SE site. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Feb 19 '18 at 16:35

2 Answers2

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Disable nothing and use meta key (aka Super or Windows key)

Hold down Ctrl+Alt+Meta+L and Ubuntu will ignore this for Lock Screen but your application will interpret it as Ctrl+Alt+L.

Disable Ctrl+Alt+T in Ubuntu shortcuts

Go to System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> System -> Lock Screen and hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z

ctrl+alt+L override.png

This will hopefully allow you to reassign the original key combination in another application.

To disable lock screen permanently

Use:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.lockdown disable-lock-screen 'true'

Source: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2359828

On my dual monitor system the lock screen no longer appears when pressing Ctrl+Alt+L. However the screens saver still kicks in and you have to move mouse, touch a key, etc to turn the monitors back on. Although a password is not required to unlock the screen it might be a bug.

Community
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WinEunuuchs2Unix
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6

This worked for me: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/24908490/ubuntu-do-not-lock-the-screen-when-pressing-superl

Basically: Unity also has a shortcut that overrides the one in the keyboard configuration, and you can edit it using CompizConfig (you can install it via Ubuntu Software, search for CompizConfig Settings Manager). Remapping wasn't working in all cases for me, but completely disabling the shortcut (uncheck "Enabled") did the trick. Ctrl+Alt+L now works well in IntelliJ Idea.

mjavault
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