[ubuntu-uk] screensaver freezing

[Tony Travis]

David King wrote:
> [...]
> I have changed to a different screensaver (SlideScreen) to stop the
> problem in case it is Helios. Also I changed the setting for Power
> Management to not switch off the screen (it was previously set to switch
> off after 40 minutes). I wonder if perhaps the more fancy screensavers
> are just too much for whatever graphics hardware is in the laptop?

Hello, David.

Screen 'savers' are a real CPU hog, and not needed to 'save' screens 
these days when most of us are using LCD's. Screen savers were devised 
to stop the electron beam in CRT's etching the phosphor when a static 
image is displayed for a long period e.g. on airline booking terninals.

[I nearly bought one of these ex-airline terminals myself (years ago) 
until I saw that the booking form had been etched onto the CRT screen!]

Switching the display off is another issue entirely, and is needed to 
conserve the battery on laptops. This is normally done in the BIOS, or 
using the power management utility. To avoid a *terrible* resource hog, 
I now disable the gnome screen saver for remote VNC/NX logins:

	sudo -i
	cd /usr/bin
	mv -i gnome-screensaver gnome-screensaver.off
	ln -s /bin/true gnome-screensaver

Disabling "gnome-screensaver" like this might also fix the problem on 
your laptop...

Bye,

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis, University of Aberdeen, Rowett Institute of Nutrition
and Health, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
tel +44(0)1224 712751, fax +44(0)1224 716687, http://www.rowett.ac.uk
mailto:a.travis at abdn.ac.uk, http://bioinformatics.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt