Not a trivial question: How do I disable the screen saver (xfce 4.10)?
 

Slackware 14.0

Hi: I have three times disabled the screen saver, entering Applications Menu>Settings>Screensaver. But during the next DE (Xfce 4.10) session, strange things begin to happen mainly, I cannot move the windows because the top bar in the windows disappear (like the window manager malfunctions). Any workaround? Or is it a known bug? With 12.0 I experienced the same problem, but I solved it by modifying one of the script files. Now the screen saver is started another way.

maybe here: http://linuxlibrary.org/xfce-4-screensaver-settings/

pan64, I think there is a previous issue here, I mean logically previous. When exiting the GUI, I get:I read your link, and it's exactly what I've been doing to disable it. Now, as this happened from just after 14.0 install, it is no authorization problem, IMO.

Those "errors on exiting the GUI" are typical errors when shutting down X. Running processes that depend on X can no longer run, so they throw errors--I've seen messages like that on shutting down X ever since I started using Slackware [mumble] years ago. I've also seen them in Debian since I configured it to boot to the terminal.

I have an idea for testing. Try running xwmconfig from the command line and selecting KDE. Then test in KDE to see if you get similar problems. If you don't, that will isolate the situation to some interaction between xscreensaver and XFCE. If you do, it would seem that something's gone screwy with your xscreensaver.

Another test would be, as root, to create a new user (use the "adduser" script) and test as the new user. If the errors do not occur, that would indicate that something has gone screwy with your user's configuration.

I agree that your question is not trivial; I gave up on xfce after failing to disable the screensaver.

The following link is over a year old, so it may not be relevant:

http://mynixworld.wordpress.com/2011...e-screensaver/

In 12.0, the screen saver was launched from /etc/xfce/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc (now /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc). So I just commented out the line. But now GUI related stuff seems to have been shifted towards the Windows kind of thing. Where did we have to deal with unicode characters?!

Thanks for the link and do tell me what DE you use instead of Xfce.

I have been using UDE, or rather its window manager, UWM, since there really isn't much of a desktop environment. Despite its lack of development -- a refreshing change from the constant flux of KDE, GNOME, and XFCE desktops -- there hasn't been any really need to update it (it is directly based on Xlib).

I was mainly using XFCE on my laptop because UWM makes extensive use of all three mouse buttons and the pad on my laptop doesn't have a middle button. I also was using XFCE on a "headless" server so that I can run X11 across my network.

If you decide to try UWM on Slackware, you should build it from the Subversion repo. The available source tarballs rely upon Texlive being installed.

I think "constant flux" is an euphemism for "fastidious" (which I really think it is). Thanks for your references.

A partial solution: I turn off the x permission bits in /usr/bin/xscreensaver. The solution is not complete because it does not turn the beam off, but goes to low power state. However,

I can study each of these files.

Just to end the confusion I started XFCE 4.10 for the first time on my desktop machine (Slackware64-current, I usually run KDE).

I went to "Applications Menu > Settings > Screensaver" and disabled the screensaver, then from the "File" menu chose "Kill Daemon".

Then I went to "Applications Menu > Settings > Session and Startup" and un-checked "Screensaver (launch screensaver and locker program)" in the "Application Autostart" tab.

I waited and waited, and no screensaver kicked in (except the display power saver). I logged off, logged on, waited and waited, still no screensaver.
Problem solved? Was there a problem at all?

THe issues you have been describing during the past weeks stf92 are all so strange and weird that I strongly suspect that the real issue is in your $HOME profile. Do you share your homedirectory with other distros?

Eric

No I'm not, Eric. But I do not have a ~/.xinitrc. Now, see how you had to do three settings. How is a poor Xfce user to guess that "Applications Menu > Settings > Screensaver: disable the screensaver" is not enough? Well, I had already solved the issue by unorthodox means: handled the situation to DPMS (xorg.conf) and screensaver daemon x bit disabled. But of course, I'll now follow your procedure instead. I do not think the problem is going to persist. If it does, I post again. Thanks a lot.

EDIT: Some else, though. When I selected not Disable screensaver but Blank screen, I got the same mess after the following session.It's good to have the blank screen selected because then extend the CRT phosphor life (I have one). So I'm still in the same problem. And every time the mess happened I entirely cleaned ~/ of all hidden files and dirs.