Mate screensaver vs. Xscreensaver and adding more; Queries, please

[computerguy]

To start with - I am very much missing the ability to use a specific & very beautiful screensaver that I've used for many years called 'Particle Fire' now that I have become a user of U-M.

I have already added Xscreensaver and made sure that it is activating in the autostart programs dialogue.

Now to my actual queries as they ultimately relate with the above:

1. I find that now I am uncertain as to what actually opens or is in control when trying to add another screensaver...
   Is it Xscreensaver or Mate-screensaver; how may I be 100% certain that it is the Xscreensaver dialogue which is doing the actual work ??

2. A screensaver called 'Fireflies' was suggested as a replacement for my old favourite & I found it & followed its installation instructions, BUT=>
   It does not appear in (what I think is...) the Xscreensaver dialogue.

Which leads to:
3. How to make this and/or any others appear so that they can be used ??

I've searched extensively for any possible solution to make this visible without success - and there is no reference to 'Fireflies' here.
I've also seen the recent threads here mentioning the visibility of added screensavers in the setup dialogue, and their suggestions, but nothing that I could find has helped.

Ultimately leading to=>
What does one need to do to make an added screensaver visible such that it may be configured & used via the Xscreensaver dialogue ??

Thanks for any helpful replies !!

PS:
There was a very fascinating thread here mentioning the 'Electric Sheep' screensaver & Xscreensaver which ended 100% inconclusively & of course that was the alternative suggested to me in case 'Fireflies' is impossible to add & use successfully to U-M !!

[ugnvs]

What about

[SOLVED] Replace screen saver

I would edit the command to xscreensaver -no-splash Otherwise, you may get the little xscreensaver splash screen on login when it starts up. Be sure to install all the extra screensavers which are extra packages: xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra rss-glx rss-glx requires some extra steps, and contains some of the best screensavers. After installing it, read the file /usr/share/doc/rss-glx/README.xscreensaver to get them to work.

[Spyder]

To make it visible in the choices, it needs to have an line entry in ~/.xscreensaver
GL: fireflies -root \n\
I installed the Fireflies screensaver from a .deb file. When I installed it, I remember I made a manual entry to ~/.xscreensaver for it, but apparently I didn't need to, as I later noticed a duplicate listing which the .deb installer must have made. If you didn't use a .deb file, you may have to add the entry manually. In addition, I added a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/screensavers, just because all the other screensavers have them.

Just in case you need it, the fireflies executable goes into /usr/lib/xscreensaver

[computerguy]

Thanks for the helpful replies Folks !!

Before posting here I did all that - checked & re-checked - and still, no Fireflies. Bummer.
(I didn't install all the massive number of extra screensavers though, simply because I do not want or need them.)

What really perplexes me is how I only have one easily found entry that opens mate-screensaver-preferences in the menu, but=>

When I looked here:
~/.local/share/applications I found the correct entry for it - copied it to desktop, set it executable - and BAM! there was Fireflies in its list !!!

So I went back to the Mate entry & unchecked the activate when idle box...hopefully that is enough to be rid of the nuisancesome thing !!

And finally it is working as hoped for since this adventure began.

NOW:
How to prune the (looks like a...) bazillion not installed entries from the list in the config dialogue, please ??

Thanks Again.