Q I am running Gnome on Mint 4.0, which is based on Ubuntu 7.10. Is it possible to use Sherman's Aquarium as a screensaver? I've installed it and it runs as an applet on the Gnome panel and I can manually start a larger version from the command line, but it doesn't appear as a screensaver in the screensaver list. It looks as though the list is generated with some XML config files, but I don't want to start fiddling without an idea of what I'm doing.
A Sherman's Aquarium works with XScreenSaver but not Gnome-screensaver. XScreenSaver is not installed by default with Mint Linux, so the first step is to install it. Installing Sherman's Aquarium in the usual way (via the Synaptic package manager), installs the program but does not add it to the list of screensavers used by XScreensaver, possibly because it is considered a hack. To add it to the list, you need to edit the file .xscreensaver in your home directory. If this file does not exist, run xscreensaver- demo this will create the file with the default settings. Now edit the file and find the line that says programs:. Add a line after this that contains
"Sherman's aquarium" shermans -root \n\
Then run xscreensaver-demo to configure the screensaver. Finally, you need to make sure XScreenSaver runs when you start a session, and disable Gnome screensaver. Go to System > Preferences > Sessions and press Add, type in a suitable name and description and set the command to
xscreensaver -nosplash
Disable the Gnome-screensaver, log out and in again and you should see a very fishy desktop when the screen blanks.