How to get a new open gl screensaver in to the desktop gui

[cac67]

First off I'm open to suggestions for a better thread title.

I've tried several times to get a new screensaver to show up so I can select it in the desktop settings gui. I've searched repeatedly, but apparently not well, because while I found a bunch of questions about it, I never found how to do it. Only 1 response and it was outdated.

I'm using Gutsy upgraded from Feisty which was fresh installed on a spanking new hard drive. I specified open gl screensavers because that's what I was using. I don't know if this works for anything else or not.

You wont find any command line code from me. I'm not very good with it, so I did this whole thing via gui.

First step is to get your screensaver. This part is outside of the scope of this instruction, but there are plenty of instructions for compiling programs. I wanted to use Hufo's Tunnel, which came with ubuntu, but not kubuntu. D/l and, if needed, compile it. I compiled mine months ago, and could run it by clicking it or from the command line. Copy this executable into root/usr/bin, but change the extension from .exe to .kss

Next, open /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers/. Pick a known good screensaver .desktop file and edit as root. Find the line with the screensaver name and change it.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=keuphoria.kss
Icon=kscreensaver
Type=Application
Actions=Setup;InWindow;Root;
X-KDE-Category=OpenGL Screen Savers
X-KDE-Type=OpenGL
Name=Euphoria (GL)
Name[bg]=Еуфория
Name[ca]=Eufòria (GL)

Delete all the languages you dont use. Change the exec to yourscreensaver.kss and the name to what you want to show in the desktop conf gui. Do this for each entry.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=hufo_tunnel.kss
Icon=kscreensaver
Type=Application
Actions=Setup;InWindow;Root;
X-KDE-Category=OpenGL Screen Savers
X-KDE-Type=OpenGL
Name=Hufo's Tunnel (GL)
[Desktop Action Setup]
Exec=hufo_tunnel.kss -setup
Name=Setup...

[Desktop Action InWindow]
Exec=hufo_tunnel.kss -window-id %w
Name=Display in Specified Window

[Desktop Action Root]
Exec=hufo_tunnel.kss -root
Name=Display in Root Window

Save this as the name of the kss with the extension .desktop, example hufo_tunnel.desktop

I restarted x. I'm not sure if it was needed or not, but I didn't think to check before I did it. When I pulled up the desktop config and selected screen saver, my entry was there. Preview worked, and when I set it to 1 minute and waited it started on schedule and stopped with my mouse movement, then started back up again 1 minute later. So far I haven't had any problems from it.

[cac67]

Re: How to get a new open gl screensaver in to the desktop gui

Works the same in Hardy Heron.

[askrieger]

Re: How to get a new open gl screensaver in to the desktop gui

Are you aware that Hufo's Tunnel (and several other screensavers) are available in a package called "rss-glx"? I believe that this would eliminate the need to compile the screensaver yourself, but I don't know what else you might have to do, because I haven't installed the package.

[cac67]

Re: How to get a new open gl screensaver in to the desktop gui

I did a lot of searching before I finally compiled it myself. I don't remember if I tried that package or not, but I was unable to get it to work until I compiled it.