This will install xscreensaver and a selection of screensavers to get you started. Install from the PPA by typing sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra Packages are available for Bionic (18.04) and Xenial (16.04) but are compatible with other releases such as cosmic (18.10) by changing the release in the software sources to bionic, or manually downloading and installing the. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hda-me/xscreensaver Open a terminal from your app menu or with Ctrl+Alt+T and enter. The version available in the repositories isn’t the most up to date. The Cinnamon desktop for example still uses it as a backend for their screensaver packages. Xscreensaver is a nifty little program that over 25 years old is still being actively maintained by the original author, It’s old but not obsolete. On older hardware, it may briefly display the desktop between the screensaver turning off and when the lock screen is invoked. The Next best option is to invoke the gnome lock screen when xscreensaver changes state. ![]() although aesthetically it would still look out of place. Themeing the dialog would be the more sensible option to retain the security of the user. This leaves the user with three options to work around this, either,Ī) Turn It off although xscreensaver will prevent the machine from locking.ī) Theme the unlock dialog although options are limited.Ĭ) Listen to changes in the state of xscreensaver and then lock the screen when xscreensaver unblanks. It instead renders a very bad looking unlock option. The only downside to using this is the lack of native lock screen dialog. ![]() It can, however, play videos with a few tweaks using VLC. This package is capable of displaying a number of included open-gl powered screensavers. Although as stated Gnome Shell doesn’t support them the can still be used via the xscreensaver package. So Why still use them? Because they look cool. Gnome shell has therefore not developed a screensaver function into gnome-shell, simply opting for a blank screen which when a user interacts requires them to login into the computer for security purposes. Indeed, I am currently using pkill xscreensaver as my method to get rid of the screensaver from a script, which often results in zombie processes and other messes.Technically screensavers are no longer required as modern displays are not susceptible to burn in from displaying the same image as older CRT monitors. ![]() That can leave things in an inconsistent state, and you may need to restart your window manager to repair the damage. ![]() If you are using a virtual root window manager, As the man page for xscreensaver-command -exit warns, Warning: never use kill -9 with xscreensaver while the screensaver is active. xscreensaver-command -exit only kills the parent daemon xscreensaver if there is not a screensaver running. xscreensaver-command -deactivate, counterintuitively, only "simulates user activity" and still requires a password to unlock the screen. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be a good way to unlock xscreensaver from the command line. I have a small script I wrote which locks and unlocks the screen via xscreensaver when I connect or disconnect my USB thumb drive, which effectively turns it into a physical key to my workstation.
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