Better alternative to XScreenSaver for gnome?

Hi, I am using Devuan 3.1.1 and did a search for screensaver in Synpatic Package Manager, and I installed the highlighted elements:

I particularly was a fan of the OpenGL screensavers such as GLMatrix which is present in the long list of different screensavers:

So by 'themes' if you mean things like GL ones that were originally coined 'Really Slick Screensavers' - then that is about it apart from individual screensavers that have been produced. I always liked the Engine Screensaver which showed configurations of different makes of car engine like a V-6 in operation with rotating camera:

And I am running KDE Plasma!

2 Likes

Good idea! I'll reach out to the dev but I just wanted to clarify something first: what version of Systemd and X11 windowing system comes with Zorin 16.2 Core?

xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.13-1ubuntu1~20.04.6

systemd 245 245.4-4ubuntu3.19

For X11 and systemd versions, you can find this yourself via a terminal enter:

For X11

xdpyinfo | grep version

For systemd

sudo apt info systemd

My results:

swarfendor437@swarfendor437:~$ xdpyinfo | grep version
version number: 11.0
X.Org version: 1.20.13

swarfendor437@swarfendor437:~$ sudo apt info systemd
Package: systemd
Version: 245.4-4ubuntu3.20
Priority: important
Section: admin
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
Original-Maintainer: Debian systemd Maintainers pkg-systemd-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org
Bugs: OpenID transaction in progress
Installed-Size: 15.7 MB
Pre-Depends: libblkid1 (>= 2.24), libc6 (>= 2.30), libgcrypt20 (>= 1.8.0), liblz4-1 (>= 0.0~r122), liblzma5 (>= 5.1.1alpha+20120614), libselinux1 (>= 2.1.9)
Depends: libacl1 (>= 2.2.23), libapparmor1 (>= 2.9.0-3+exp2), libaudit1 (>= 1:2.2.1), libcap2 (>= 1:2.24-9~), libcrypt1 (>= 1:4.4.0), libcryptsetup12 (>= 2:2.0.1), libgnutls30 (>= 3.6.12), libgpg-error0 (>= 1.14), libidn2-0 (>= 2.0.0), libip4tc2 (>= 1.8.3), libkmod2 (>= 5~), liblz4-1 (>= 0.0~r130), libmount1 (>= 2.30), libpam0g (>= 0.99.7.1), libpcre2-8-0 (>= 10.22), libseccomp2 (>= 2.4.1), libsystemd0 (= 245.4-4ubuntu3.20), systemd-timesyncd | time-daemon, util-linux (>= 2.27.1), mount (>= 2.26), adduser
Recommends: dbus, networkd-dispatcher
Suggests: systemd-container, policykit-1
Conflicts: consolekit, libpam-ck-connector, systemd-shim, upstart
Breaks: python-dbusmock (<< 0.18), python3-dbusmock (<< 0.18), systemd-shim (<< 10-4~)
Homepage: systemd
Task: minimal, ubuntu-core
Download-Size: 3,809 kB
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
APT-Sources: Index of /ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
Description: system and service manager
systemd is a system and service manager for Linux. It provides aggressive
parallelization capabilities, uses socket and D-Bus activation for
starting services, offers on-demand starting of daemons, keeps track of
processes using Linux control groups, maintains mount and automount points
and implements an elaborate transactional dependency-based service control
logic.
.
systemd is compatible with SysV and LSB init scripts and can work as a
drop-in replacement for sysvinit.
.
Installing the systemd package will not switch your init system unless you
boot with init=/lib/systemd/systemd or install systemd-sysv in addition.

N: There is 1 additional record. Please use the '-a' switch to see it

1 Like

Any chance Zorin is going to release a new version based off Ubuntu 22.04 or above anytime soon?? :thinking: :smile:

Anyway, I tried a few more things last night including purging xscreensaver and installing xfce4-screensaver (the one from Zorin Lite) and unfortunately it didn't install properly and it crashed the OS any time I tried to run it, which isn't unexpected since it was developed specifically to fit in tightly with the XFCE desktop environment ... so going forward if I still want to have a fully functioning screensaver that doesn't activate during full screen applications, I'm basically out of options at this point unless I decide to install Lite instead or abandon ZorinOS entirely and switch over to the latest version of Ubuntu, which I really don't want to do, I was never a fan of their desktop environment.

Unless anyone else has another suggestion how I might get version 5.45 or higher of xscreensaver to work in Zorin 16.2 Core (I reached out but the dev hasn't been helpful), then I'll just say to anyone that reads this thread looking for help with the same issue: you'll either have to fork the project yourself or find someone who can and actually wants to spend all the time necessary to do it, which is probably a very short list since it's a pretty low priority and not very important to most. Unfortunately I don't have enough experience with Linux to fork it myself otherwise I definitely would!

Yes, Zorin 17 is likely based off of Ubuntu 22.04.
This, in itself, may not solve your issue, though. Above, it was covered that gnome absorbed the screenlocking into its shell, which is now integrated, abandoning gnome-screensaver.
In that case, you would be right back to installing Zorin OS 17 Lite.

From my perspective, that is no curse. I use Zorin OS Lite. It is a fully fleshed out desktop, fully supported and has all the features. Gnome is stripped down, integrated and less modular. Using Gnome makes me feel like I am back on Windows.

Further, it will likely be using Gnome 40(+) like Gnome 43.
Which is further locked down due to LibAdwaita and other restrictions Gnome has introduced.

The Xscreensaver dev, on his own pages, has lamented what these changes have constricted. So even meeting the install requirements will likely not be enough to get it to work on the latest Gnome.

1 Like

You could always install Plasma (KDE) Desktop Environment and login to that to use the xscreensaver.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.