HOWTO: Replace gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver

[morphx]

I recently installed Ubuntu on my laptop as my primary OS (dual booting with XP) and I've just felt in love with it... still... there're many things I miss from XP and being able to easily configure my screensavers is one them.

So, after reading this, and other similar posts, I decided to try to do a full replacement for gnome-screensaver-preferences
After a couple of days I've managed to come up with an application that will let you (a) see the list of all your screensavers, (b) preview them in a small window and (c) change their settings.
The application does not yet support changing parameters specific to the daemon (such as when to start the screensaver, whether to lock the screen or not, etc...) but so far it can be simply used to setup your screensavers so they run the way "we" want them.

If anyone is interested, it can be downloaded form this address:
http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfx-scre...ngs_0.1.tar.gz

Comments... suggestions... ideas... they are all welcomed!

[dhasenan]

If you want System->Quit->Lock Screen to work, just do this:

$ sudo ln -f /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-command

after following the rest of that guide. The query, throttle, and unthrottle flags from gnome-screensaver-command won't work, though.

[giacomolg]

Thanks for the tip. What do the query, throttle, and unthrottle flags do?

Bye

[Quoll]

23Meg - what can I say? This was one of the things bugging me since upgrading to Dapper and your HOWTO works flawlessly. (The other was a mis-synced Linux clock and I now have that sorted too.)

This is what Ubuntu is all about. Thank you!

[P_Badger]

Thanks 23meg, you're a Saint! So far option 1 seems to be working great since I've never really found myself needing to lock my screen.

Hopefully the "gui nazis" who've crippled gnome screensaver will eventually get the point that all they're doing is ******* people off.

[lorddaddy84]

Thanks for the tip. What do the query, throttle, and unthrottle flags do?

Bye

Any ideas?

[shoki]

5. Add the xscreensaver daemon to your list of startup programs. Go to System / Preferences / Sessions / Startup Programs, click "Add" and type "xscreensaver -no-splash".

I can not seem to get this to actually save. Are there any tricks to getting it to save the session?

Thanks
--Shoki

[hikaricore]

You shouldn't need to actually save the session to get startup programs to launch. I've never personally had any trouble with them. Is it just xscreensaver that won't launch or is it anything? Try putting something trivial like gedit in your startup programs and logout then back into X. If it pops up then you may just be having trouble launching xscreensaver for one reason or another, you might try making a bash startup script and adding it there instead.

[shoki]

gedit dosent work either... it's not a big deal... when I boot up I just launch xscreensaver and it works. Yeah I ad the command and it goes into the box of programs to launch and then when I start session manager again the command is gone. I searh for a how to on start-up scripts later.

Thanks again,
--Shoki

[autocrosser]

I can say that this guide also works in Edgy--I also went to my Sessions & disabled the Gnome-Power-Manager items--I use Xscreensaver monitor contrls & it works much better than GPM.