Since I am a screensaver kind of guy (I love them) and it seems there is very little love for them anymore (hence the lack of them in the Mate release), here are the steps to add the 200 or so great screensavers to Mint Mate 17:
Enjoy the screensavers! My little girl can't live without the bouncing cow, so luckily she does not have to
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason:Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I am curious about this same question - the few default screensavers added to MATE are nice, but there isn't much choice. I was curious how to do this, so thanks for the steps, but...do these steps for adding Xscreensavers ALSO add them to the Lock Screen function as well...?
I rarely use the screensavers for "just sreensavers", but I do lock my screen all the time to keep prying eyes away while I am at work and AFK and it is there that I would like them to appear, and then move the mouse / hit a key to bring up my password login box?
Also, if I can't get them to work....how hard would it be to get the MATE screensavers back...?
1. Download [mate-screensaver-hacks-5.26-1-any.pkg.tar.xz] package, unpack it and hold for later.
2. Install packages with additional screensavers:
xscreensaver-data
xscreensaver-data-extra
xscreensaver-gl
xscreensaver-gl-extra
xscreensaver
[Note: xscreensaver is ONLY installed to load the {.xscreensaver} file into the /home directory and to set your initial image directory. To change image directory: See Below]
3. Run: xscreensaver to load the {.xscreensaver} file into the /home directory.
[Note: Do Not start the xscreensaver daemon. I don't know what will happen if you do.]
For GLSlideshow- click the Advanced-TAB in the upper left and select [Choose Random Image] then browse to the image directory you want to use and open it, then close Xscreensaver.
4. Use Synaptic Package Manager and do a Complete Removal of (xscreensaver) ONLY.
5. Open: {/usr/share/applications/screensavers} as Administrator and delete all the screensaver files. While still in Administrator mode go to the mate-screensaver-hacks directory and copy all the new screensavers into the directory you just deleted all the old ones from, then close the directory.
6. Open Mate-Screensaver and you should have all the Xscreensavers available for use.
For GLSlideshow- open Text Editor as Administrator and then open /usr/share/applications/screensavers/glslideshow.desktop .
Look for the following entry:
Exec=glslideshow -root
Modify this line to instead read:
Exec=glslideshow -root -duration 15 -pan 15 -fade 5 -zoom 75
Where: duration represents the amount of time (in seconds) to display an image for pan represents the amount of time (in seconds) to run the pan effect on this image fade represents the transition time (in seconds) to fade between images zoom represents the amount to zoom and pan as a percentage. Default: 75, meaning that 75% or more of each image will always be visible. If set to 100%, then the images will always fill the screen, and no panning or zooming will occur. Images will still smoothly fade from one to another, however, assuming -fade is non-zero.
Note: With the settings of -pan 6 -duration 30, each image will be displayed five times (30/6), and then a new image will be loaded. If you want a new image to be loaded at each fade, then set -pan and -duration to the same value.
~~~ IMPORTANT ~~~
If GLSlideshow doesn't load after the set amount of time, follow these instructions: