[QUOTE=mikewillis;22468]Given the amount if work that’s been done on SLED 12 there is zero chance they’re going to change the default DE now.
I’m sure someone else does, there’s always someone 
I have never had any problems manually locking the screen with GNOME 3 in openSUSE or in the SLED 12 Beta.
Try GNOME Classic. It’s not included in openSUSE by default but you can get it by installing the gnome-classic package. Unfortunately finding information on GNOME Classic is not as easy as it could be because the term ‘GNOME Classic’ has been used for different things at different times in different distros and if it’s explained on the GNOME website I can’t just find it, but skip to ‘Reinvented Classic Mode’ at
https://news.opensuse.org/2013/10/29/sneak-peek-opensuse-13-1-what-we-have-for-gnome-users/
I feel GNOME Classic is the good things about GNOME 3 but without the potentially bafflingly frustrating experience of logging in for the first time and seeing nothing that is in any way familiar so you have no clue what to do if you haven’t read up on it in advance. RedHat have shipped with GNOME Classic as the default and I think that was a very sensible decision. I can’t tell you exactly what the default SLED 12 GNOME experience will be like but if you find you like GNOME Classic, I do encourage you to grab a copy of SLED 12 as soon as it’s released, it’s free to download after all, and check it out ;)[/QUOTE]
I have installed 5 different instances of openSUSE 13.1 and none of them have the ability to manually lock the screen; 3 of them do not lock the screens when they blank, I had to manually run gnome-screensaver-command and then gnome-screensaver to lock it when it blanks. I should NOT have to install a 3rd party addon to get basic security functionality from my desktop. Adding things through shell extensions have proven unreliable as they are not guaranteed to work with the next update: for example, I had a lock extension installed that worked to lock the screen one week then, after an update, it never worked again, no matter how many times I installed it. This happened on 2 of the 5 systems, the other 3 I didn’t try as they weren’t there in front of me.
Some people like Gnome 3, I and my family are among those who do not. I have been working with Linux since 1996 and have never hated the desktop experience until Gnome 3. I have written extensively to the developers to address its many shortcomings, much which have been written about by more knowledgeable people than myself and they told me: “We decide what we want and if you want to have input, give us feedback.” I thought I was… and none of my “feedback” has ever been answered or addressed.
This is NOT commercial level support; nor do I have a tablet or touch screen interface; according to the developer with whom I spoke, they will continue to "simplify: the desktop user experience. Unfortunately, I will now have to find a different distro that uses Mint or Cinnamon; XFCE/LXDE lock up at odd instances; KDE 4 is a worse mess than Gnome and Gnome 3 is not an option; however, for what I recommend to businesses I am really at a loss. Nobody wants Windows 8; I cannot recommend anything with Gnome 3 or KDE, and Mac OS X (with its hardware) is too expensive for a lot of small businesses.
