I'm playing Hide and seek with my screen saver!

I've just installed RH 8.0 using the KDE desktop when I chose a screen saver and tested it, it worked

However when the screen saver is supposed to kick in, it simply goes to a blank screen why is this

I've looked in the manual supplied with the boxed version and also looked in "Red Hat Linux 8 for Dummies" book, but I can't see a solution.

Please advise.

Sure you didnt select the blank screen screensaver?

Have you got it set to a random screensaver?

I didn't see anything worded "blank screen" or words to that effect.

I ticked the box marked "Enable sceen saver " and then chose the 'matrix' as my screen saver from the menu and set the time for 30 minutes, just as I would in MS Windows.

This is a bug in KDE. The description of the bug and the work around is here:
http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/...g.cgi?id=76760

But essentially you just have to add a couple of directories and either copy the screensavers over to the new directory or link them.
HTH

Ok, I visited the link you suggested. Thank you.
I printed it off so that I can apply this to my Linux PC.

Here is the answer found from the link provided:
"You can fix this by creating the following directories under
$HOME/.kde/share/applnk-redhat:

System/ScreenSavers

Then copy/link all files from /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver/ScreenSavers

You may also have to do the same for the files above the ScreenSavers directory".


Forgive my ignorance but here is my question, where do I need to go in Linux or KDE to enter it in.

And what are they talking about when they say "You may also have to do the same for the files above the ScreenSavers directory".

First open a terminal window so that you can use the command line. Now you should be in your home directory ($HOME). Use the cd command to move through the directory tree they have listed (cd .kde/share/applnk-redhat). If you use the ls -al command, you'll see that there is no directory called System. So go ahead and make the directories they have listed (System/Screensavers).

First use:
mkdir System,
cd System to make sure it's there,
mkdir Screensavers

Now that you've made the directories you can copy over one or all of the screensavers from /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver/ScreenSavers. In my case, I just wanted the Matrix screensaver so there was no need to copy/link them all.

So use:
cd /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver/
cp MatrixScreensaver.something /home/username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/MatrixScreensaver.something (not sure what the actual name is, but you get the idea)

Make sure that you copied it to the right place, then voila your screensaver will come on after the appropriate time has elapsed. If you want all the screensavers, you can copy them all over or just make a hardlink using the ln command.
HTH

Don't know how much Linux knowledge you have. Do you know how to make directories and copy files from the command line?

The instructions just mean make a directory called System inside of your own /home/mutley101/.kde/share/applnk-redhat directory. Then make a directory called ScreenSavers inside of /home/mutley101/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/System.

Then copy all the files that are in /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver/ScreenSavers to your /home/mutley101/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/System/ScreenSavers directory.

The part about you may also have to do this for the files above the ScreenSavers directory means that you may have to copy the files from the /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver directory too (kscreensaver is the directory just above ScreenSavers in this case). I don't think I had to do this step to make it work, but you may have to.

Finally, the instructions talk about your $HOME directory. If your user name on your Linux system is mutley101, then your home directory is /home/mutley101, as I have assumed above. $HOME is a system variable that contains the name of your home directory, i.e. $HOME=/home/mutley101. If your user name on your Linux system is not mutley101, just substitute whatever it is for mutley101 in the above instructions.

Thanks to Capt_Caveman and cpv204

I'm working a double shift at the nursing home this Friday so will attempt this over the weekend.

Originally posted by cpv204
Don't know how much Linux knowledge you have.

In a word, 'none'!

I've only ever used MS Windows since version 3.1 so am only used to working with a GUI not CLI
The closest I've come to program language is some elementary attempt at QBasic and a flawed attempt at Visual Basic and a passable attempt at coding HTML in Notepad. (see profile for website address)

Does that count for anything

Mutley, if you can handcraft HTML you shouldn't have too much trouble with the CLI. Most of what you do there is issue one-line commands, so you don't really need to think of using the CLI as "programming" per se.

Just wanted to point out a little typo in the good Capt's instructions, since he gave you what to type verbatim

Note that the destination directory in the cp command is actually
remember? That was the point of creating the System/ScreenSavers directory in step 1.

Nice catch. That would have really thrown things for a loop.

Hello Capt_Caveman and cpv204.
I've just finished my double shift at the nursing home and I've got the whole weekend to overcome this challenge.

So let me get this straight before I enter any commands.

on the cp command which should be typed in verbatim.

Is it

Option 1.
cp matrixScreensaver.something /home/username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/System/ScreenSavers/

Or is it

Option 2.
cp /home/username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/System/ScreenSavers/

(note I slightly altered the command in option 1 from the original)


I'm asking this because of Capt_Caveman last comment.
Originally posted by Capt_Caveman
Nice catch. That would have really thrown things for a loop.

After you make the new directories:
cd /usr/share/apps/kscreensaver/Screensavers

Then copy the file using:
cp KMatrix.desktop /home/Mutley/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/System/ScreenSavers/

Where "Mutley" is whatever username you login as.

That should get your screensaver to work. The cp (copy) command uses the syntax:
cp file1 file2

Where file1 is what you want to make a copy of and file2 is where you want to copy it to. In this case, we just use a path to the directory we want to put it in, instead of file2. Linux is just kind enough to name it the same thing for us. As cpv204 was sharp enough to catch, I had just forgotten to add the 2 directories (System/Screensavers) we created to the path.

I get the following message when I try to cp in the kscreensaver directory.

cp: cannot stat 'KMatrix.desktop': No such file or directory.
I even tried 'kmatrix.desktop': No such file or directory.

I used the ls -al command in my home directory and yes I've created both:
system
Screensavers

So I decided to use the ls -al command in the kscreensaver directory and I find that 'KMatrix' or even 'kmatrix' is not listed. So I tried the cp command using a file that did show up in the ls -al command 'kscience.png' I tried it using '.desktop' and '.png' but kept getting the afore mentioned style of messages.

Here is exactly, letter for letter what I did and typed perhaps you can spot the mistake I made:
I opened a terminal window and typed in:
(Note: I'm the only user so can't get mixed up with other users)

mkdir system
then
mkdir Screensavers

Then I cd system to make sure both are there. (yes)

I then typed the following.
cd /usr/share/apps/ksceensaver/screensavers (yes)

I then typed the following.
cp KMatrix.desktop /home/my username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/system/ScreenSavers/ (no)

I even tried
cp KMatrix.desktop /home/my username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/system/Screensavers/ (no)

and
cp kmatrix.desktop /home/my username/.kde/share/applnk-redhat/system/Screensavers/ (no)

and so on. just in case it was a simple typo.

File names are case sensitive you MUST use/create files using the EXACT names.

"FiLe.EXt" is not the same as "fILE.Ext" or "fiLE.exT"