Screensaver problem (XScreenSaver vs Gnome)

**GTiBanshee** · July 17th, 2013

This is my very first post in a forum and my very first post in the Ubuntu forums, plus I am working on my very first installation of a Linux system. So you can see I'm breaking some some new ground on many fronts here so any help or advice for someone like me, even outside my question, would be much appreciated!

Here's my question, I have been trying, and failing to activate the screen saver on my Ubuntu 13.04 distro for the past few days, installed just a few days ago. A little history... I've built two desktop computers, both with Windows, I have two laptop Macs, My wife and I have iPhones, and I have been studying EE. I know it's not vital to have a screen saver but it's nice if I walk a way from my computer there's pretty things dancing around my screen instead of just black. That's what is happening now just black... If I go into system tools I can find a there is a section for appearance, but no screen saver. Brightness & Lock has the settings for screen off and lock but again no screen saver. Nowhere ells is there a setting that should contain a screen saver, I looked anyway. I searched for it using the Ubuntu search, I tried looking for it in the Ubuntu Software Center. Then I found this forum posting, and I searched the Ubuntu Software Center for the xscreen saver, and found it... but wouldn't you know it I couldn't download it and install it. So I thought I've used the sudo apt-get command before I know it's safe (I realized as I was tying this safe is a relative term, I know that the command "sudo" can get me into allot of trouble if not used properly), and I know the xscreen-saver is not a malicious program b/c I saw it in the USC, so I tried that, I went to my terminal and typed in sudo apt-get xscreen-saver, this is what I got:

sudo: unable to open /var/lib/sudo/*********/0: read-only file system
E: invalid operation xscreen-saver

So then I thought maybe I needed to be signed in as root so I typed in sudo su, and repeated to processes and again it didn't work. My next thought was that I might not need the "-" so I took that out and tried again, but that still didn't work. I'm not to picky with my screen saver, I don't even know what gnome, xscreen-saver, or the default Ubuntu 13.04 (if one exists) has to offer. I would just like to hae something to start off with, and then later on I can get more picky about which one I want.

GTiBanshee

I'm running:
Intell i7 Quad Core 3.2 Ghz
EVGA X58 Motherboard
EVGA Nvida GTx480
WD 2TB
Intell 128 SSD

**alecz20** · July 17th, 2013

The correct syntax would be:

Code:

sudo apt-get install xscreensaver

Alternatively, you can use Synaptic Package Manager to search for individual packages and install them. I find it much easier to find package names like that (compared to Software Center)

Although on later Ubuntu releases, I think you first need to install Synaptic (

)