xscreensaver is not autostarted

[José Alburquerque]

Binary package hint: xscreensaver

I use xscreensaver for the system screen saver because I have several scripts that use xscreensaver- command to react to certain screen saver changes. After a login, selecting "System->Preferences->Screensaver" reports that xscreensaver is not running and asks if it should be started. After saying yes, the screen saver runs fine. But after a logout and re-logging in, re-selecting the screen saver preferences reports that xscreensaver is not running once more.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Jul 29 14:10:15 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: xscreensaver 5.08-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-4.23-generic
SourcePackage: xscreensaver
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-4-generic x86_64

[Mamoru TASAKA (mtasaka)]

I am Fedora user and I am not familiar with ubuntu, however from
this report it seems that José is using "karmic" branch (right?).

If so, this is due to the change in gnome-settings-daemon 2.27.4
From "NEWS" file in g-s-d:
------------------------------------------------------------------
==============
Version 2.27.4
==============
- Remove screensaver plugin, it's autostarted now (Matthias Clasen)
------------------------------------------------------------------

So now xscreensaver has to install desktop autostart stuff like
gnome-screensaver does (I don't know where ubuntu installs
desktop autostart stuff, however on Fedora it is /etc/xdg/autostart )

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

Yes, I'm using karmic. For now, I've temporarily worked around this by including xscreensaver in the list of startup programs ("Preferences->Startup Applications" in gnome).

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Mamoru, thanks for the pointer! You are so right, the /etc/xdg/autostart is used in Ubuntu as well.

Jose, can you verify that saving the attachment as /etc/xdg/autostart/xscreensaver.desktop does the job?

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

Yes. Saving the the desktop file to /etc/xdg/autostart does fix it. No need to have xscreensaver in the list of startup programs anymore.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

I have added this to Debian git (http://git.debian.org/?p=collab-maint/xscreensaver.git;a=summary) so it should appear in 5.10-3 and later.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

This is a very controversial issue, see bug 554069. For now this is your solution in lucid:

From README.Debian:

XScreenSaver autostart
======================

There's a script on /usr/share/xscreensaver called
xscreensaver-daemon.desktop. If you want XScreenSaver to autostart on your
session just copy it to ~/.config/autostart , if you want it on all your
system copy it on /etc/xdg/autostart .

[José Alburquerque (jaalburquerque)]

That's probably the best solution to accomodate every user. Thanks for finding a good fix for this.

[Walter Cheuk (wwycheuk)]

I am using 14.04, this doesn't work for me. xscreensaver doesn't autostart even I have that file.

[Walter Cheuk (wwycheuk)]

I used the method in comment#8, and the problem is gone. Thanks!

[hankfrennig (hankfrennig)]

used solution from comment#8 with ElementaryOS Juno and believe the problem is fixed