My experiences with screen locking on Linux over time, using various machines:
* The screen doesn't lock, and remains on while the lid is closed.
* The screen doesn't lock, but does turn off when the lid is closed.
* The screen locks, but the machine doesn't suspend when the lid is closed.
* The screen doesn't turn on after the lid is opened. Key commands work, though.
* The screen turns on after the lid is opened, but is blank (no unlock requestor).
* The machine doesn't resume from suspend, requiring a hard reset.
* The screen locker gets completely bypassed and you're dumped into the desktop (possibly a fresh desktop because the entire environment crashed and restarted).
Throw remote desktop into the mix and you're in for a world of hurt.
I just disable screen locking, and make suspend a manual operation to keep my sanity intact. The trackpad still stops responding sometimes though...
Seriously, If these distros still can't come together and get something as simple as screen locking right and consistent on X11, Wayland with a DE like GNOME or KDE, etc then it is difficult to recommend / market any Linux desktop distro to a typical consumer. It really is one of the smallest issues that would turn off a user moving to Linux, just to get work done.
I wouldn't blame them if I see any of them ending up staying on Windows or moving to macOS or outright iPadOS.
I posted a thread asking for advice and did get responses, but I haven't worked up the resolve to go back and try to get it working again. Last I checked, people were just suggesting I try something else, which kind of misses the point of the activity to uses the most secure lock screen that seemed to be available.
I appreciated the help, it just seems like the whole issue should be something provided by a systemd utility that you specify your lock screen for in a config file. I know people hate on it, but systemd really does tend to make it easier if you just kind of want your system fundamentals to stay in the background and just work rather than having to constantly meddle with them.
It's a point of pride to me that I've kept my Linux system going for so long (it's outlived one Windows and two Mac laptops) but it does feel like there's often a very myopic design to a lot of applications. That is, the author often expects you to be willing to context switch out of whatever you were doing for a few hours to learn their software to use it, and doesn't feel like there's any usability problem with the state of affairs. In the case of a lock screen, this was turning into multiple days.
I can only imagine that if things were simpler, it would make it easier to involve more people, bring them on board, and/or just to get stuff done.
Anyway - enough soapboxing.