I have installed 16.04.1 and updated it to MATE 1.16 by the PPA. Great distro! (I still like it better than the 16.10 GTK+3 version because the themes don’t allow one to see well enough when dragging and dropping files.) I installed the additional screensavers, which work fine, but there is no way to configure them. That is, the ones that use text, for example, have no way to input the desired text. Others have no way to adjust the settings. Is this something that will be resolved in the future, or is there a way to do it now?
Hello
Please give us a link to these screensavers.
Thanks
They’re the ones in the Welcome Center that are called Additional Screensavers.
I believe your talking about an option thats part of Xscreensaver. Which can be used instead of mate-screensaver.
Yes, except that when you install 16.04 LTS, then update with the PPA to MATE 1.16, then install Additional Screensavers through the Welcome Center, you don’get the “Settings” option. I could send you a screenshot, but I can’t figure out how to do so.
You could post your pic on photobucket or something else.
The pic I posted is xscreensaver on m1.16.
Here is the link to a photobucket posting of my screenshot. It whows I have the screensavers from MATE 1,16, but that for me there is no “Settings” button. (i.e. my screenshot is different from yours.)
http://s1255.photobucket.com/user/supusrs/library/?view=recent&page=1
Again, that is because your screenshot is mate-screensaver and my screenshot is xscreensaver.
These are two different screensavers.
That is what I was asking – whether or not in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 with the MATE 1.16 ppa added one can access the settings for the various xscreensavers that the distro allows you to install. It appears you are saying no. (?)
Oddly, I uninstalled the additional screensavers (xscreensavers), and now have just the mate-screensavers, but there is still no “Settings” option! See screenshot:
That is correct, no it will not.
Try this in terminal (one command at a time):
sudo apt install xscreensaver
and
killall mate-screensaver
and
xscreensaver
There’s a bit more to it then that, but lets get this much first 
OK. Did those 3 commands. When I entered “xscreensaver” I got the old xscreensaver interface that did include a settings option. Still, when I access it from the control center there is no way to access settings. I know you said there was more to it… By the way, thanks for your interest in helping me with this puzzle.
Good
You can now opt to use the xscreensaver interface if you wish.
Open your autostart app and first uncheck mate-screensaver and then add a new startup for xscreensaver. The autostart command is:
xscreensaver -no-splash
Or it just may be possible to use the xscreensaver interface to set your options and leave it run in mate-screensaver. You will have to play with that.
Yes. Done. I will have to experiment with the options this provides, but I understand. Thanks again for the help.
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To clarify a little… as of 64 bit Ubuntu Mate 18.04LTS:
Mate menu -> System -> Preferences -> Personal -> Startup Applications -> Screensaver. What you are going to change is not labeled as mate-screensaver in the menu, you have to click the edit button on the Screensaver entry in order to see the words mate-screensaver.
More, if original participants wish to revisit this:
The control center entry for screensaver hasn’t changed, it still brings up the original interface without any settings, so I’m presuming the control center is still working with mate-screensaver. Would be nice if it could point to the xscreensaver tools.
I'm sorry to resurrect a very old thread but in case anybody is curious how to get more screensavers just do:
# apt-get install xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra
(nothing else is needed when mate-screensaver is called from the menu it shows the additional screensavers).
For the record the settings are not available but it's OK for most screensavers even without the tweaks.
All above valid for Ubuntu Mate 22.04.4.
Source: Install more screensavers on Mate desktop | Serhii Potapov (greyblake)
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