Along the left side is a list of all available screen savers. You can select a screen saver by simply clicking on its name. Once you have selected a screen saver, you will see a small preview on the monitor on the right.

Each screen saver has a different set of setup options. By clicking on Setup..., a dialog box will appear with all available options. As you adjust the options, the preview box in the dialog box will show you what effect you will achieve with the current settings.

When you are done setting up your screen saver, click OK.

Clicking Cancel will erase any changes you made in this dialog box, and return you to the screen saver module.

Clicking the About button will give you the Copyright and Author information if you are interested.

When you think you have all the options set the way you want, simply click on Test to immediately start the screen saver exactly as it will appear.

In the Settings box is a check box labeled Start automatically. This box must have a mark in it, or KDE will not launch any screen saver and it will not allow you to adjust the settings of your screen saver.

Below the screensaver list is a check box to have the screen saver Start automatically check box, and a spin box which determines the period of inactivity before the screen saver should be started. You can enter any postive number of minutes in this box.

Below that is a check box labeled Require password to stop screen saver. If it is checked, when you click a key or click a mouse button to end the screen saver and return to your work, you must enter a password. The password used is the same password you used to login to your machine. If there is no mark in the check box, no password is required to return to your desktop.

KDE does not prevent another screen saver from working. To use a different screen saver, such as xscreensaver, simply disable the KDE Screen Saver, and set up your other screen saver program normally.

If you want to remove a screen saver from the list in this System Settings module, you will need to rename a file on your system.

To delete a screen saver, type the following commands:

bash$ cd 
$KDEDIR/kde4/services/ScreenSavers
bash$ ls

This will give you a list of files. You will notice similarities between some of the file names and that of the screen saver you want to remove. Simply rename the file of similarly named desktop file to a name which does not end in desktop.

Example:

bash$ cd 
$KDEDIR/share/kde4/services/ScreenSavers
bash$ mv krandom.desktop krandom.backup

Will remove Space (GL) from the list

To restore the disabled screen saver, simply rename the file back to its original name:

bash$ cd 
$KDEDIR/share/kde4/services/ScreenSavers
bash$ mv krandom.backup krandom.desktop

Restart the System Settings, and the screen saver is back in the list.

There is a five second grace period after the screen saver begins before a password is required even if Require password is checked.

Locking the desktop manually, by clicking the lock icon in the KDE panel, causes the password protection to engage immediately with no grace period.

To alter the grace period setting, you need to manually edit the configuration file. To do so:

$ cd ~/.kde/share/config

Now, using a text editor (the example uses Kate, the KDE text editor), load the kscreensaverrc.

$ kate kscreensaverrc

Search through the file for an entry entitled LockGrace.

If the entry exists, you can edit the value of the entry.

LockGrace=3000

The value of the entity represents the duration of the grace period in milliseconds. An entry of 3000, would change the grace period to 3 seconds. You can set the value of the entry to any number between zero (no grace period) and 300000 (5 minutes).

If the entry does not exist, simply add the entry to the end of the section.

Any changes to the configuration entry take effect immediately.