Configuration for screen savers?

[David Vincent]

Mark Nichols wrote:

> Both the gnome screensaver, and xsccreensaver, seem to consume a 
> tremendous amount of CPU on my machine.  When any screensaver from 
> either collection is started the fan kicks in to high gear and runs 
> nonstop until I quit the screensaver.
> 
> Also, the xscreensaver seemed to lock up every time I'd access it's 
> configuration panel, so I've temporarily disabled it. (I was forced to 
> used Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to get away from the xscreensaver dialog.) I 
> installed xscreensaver following these instructions: 
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=195557
> 
> How do I restrict the screensaver so that it doesn't turn my machine 
> into an obnoxious white-noise source?

are you running compiz?  i'm thinking it might be the xgl server your x 
is running to enable the pretty effects.  what card do you have and what 
driver are you using?  do you want the effects?  if you have modern 
enough hardware you might be better off without the xgl server and 
instead using aiglx, for that you need the proprietary driver for nvidia 
and ati - and for ati the very latest one they just released.  just ask 
if you need links or poke through the list archives, this has all been 
covered before.

you can disable the xgl server with this command in a terminal:

$ touch ~/.config/xserver-xgl/disable

and then either log out and then log back in, or reboot.  if that 
doesn't help and you want to enable the xgl server again just delete the 
file you created...

$ rm ~/.config/xserver-xgl/disable

...and again logout/login or reboot.

hth

-d