Setting Screensavers
This chapter describes how to set preferences for the screensaver.
This chapter also provides information on how to modify the displays that
are available for the screensaver.
Introduction to Screensavers
screensavers
introduction
XScreenSaver
screensavers
A
screensaver
is an application that
replaces the image on a screen when the screen is not in use. The screensaver
application for the GNOME Desktop is
XScreenSaver
.
The following sections describe how to set preferences for the
XScreenSaver
application, and how to modify the displays that
are available for the screensaver.
Setting Screensaver Preferences
screensavers
setting preferences
Default screensaver preferences are stored in a file that
is called
XScreenSaver
. This file is stored in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/XScreenSaver
.
To modify screensaver application preferences, users can use the
Screensaver
preference tool. When a user modifies the screensaver
preferences, the preferences are stored in the home directory of the user,
in the
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file. For information on screensaver preferences, see
GNOME 2.6 Desktop User Guide
.
Users can
also run the command
/usr/bin/xscreensaver-demo
to open
the
XScreenSaver
dialog.
To set default screensaver preferences for all users, modify the
XScreenSaver
file. You can also use the
XScreenSaver
dialog to create a
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file,
then copy the file to the location of the
XScreenSaver
file.
To restore the default settings for a user, delete the
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file from the home directory of the user. If no
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file is present, the default preferences in the
XScreenSaver
file are used.
The default display behavior of
XScreenSaver
is to display a blank screen. The blank screen might confuse users. You might
want to change this default display behavior.
To activate changes to the screensaver preferences, use the following
command to reload screensaver preferences:
#
xscreensaver-command -restart
The
xset
application does not work
with
XScreenSaver
at the time of publication of
this guide. To modify screensaver preferences, modify the
XScreenSaver
file or the
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file.
Modifying Screensaver Displays
screensavers
modifying screensaver
displays
The screensaver application allows users
to choose one or more
screensaver displays
. A screensaver
display is an application that displays images on the screen of the user when
the screen is not in use. The screensaver displays are listed in the
XScreenSaver
file and in the
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file.
To add a new
screensaver display, copy the executable file for the display to the directory
where the displays are located. Add the command for the screensaver display
to the
XScreenSaver
file or the
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file. Include any arguments that are required to run the screensaver
display on the whole screen, rather than in a window. For example, you might
want to include the
-root
option to display the screensaver
display on the whole screen.
To disable a screensaver display, add
a minus sign (-) at the start of the command for the screensaver display in
the preferences file. The following excerpt from a
$HOME/.xscreensaver
file shows a disabled
Qix (solid)
screensaver
display:
-		 "Qix (solid)" 	qix -root -solid -segments 100
