Glslideshow white screens - (semi) Solved

[TrippH]

Hey all! Long time reader, occasional questions with lots of help from you all! Now I'm hoping you can help with this one:

I've been running Xscreensaver and GLSlideshow since pretty much day 1 in Mint 18, and it's always worked perfectly.

Until I installed Mint 21. Clean install, installed Xscreensaver, set up GLSlideshow with the same settings as before, and it's working, except when it changes the image, it's switches to a white screen then the next image.

Never did that before. It always simply faded smoothly from one image to the next.

I've searched and found nothing similar. Any suggestions? Need any more info?

Thanks in advance.

TrippH

[SMG]

Until I installed Mint 21.

What desktop environment, Cinnamon, MATE, or Xfce?
(Cinnamon already has its own screensaver and adding Xscreensaver can be problematic.)

[TrippH]

Cinnamon. And I've read that, but it worked fine for me all the way through 20.3.

[SMG]

Cinnamon's windows manager had a major rewrite for LM21. That may be the difference.

I am not at all familiar with GIslideshow so I have no idea what the issue might be. Maybe someone else will have some ideas.

[TrippH]

A little experimenting and I found a workaround:

One of the GLSlideshow settings is the "Zoom" -- the minimum amount of the image that will be visible as it zooms in and out of the various images.

Uninstalling, reinstalling, trying different values, still getting a white screen between images. Finally I tried booting from a USB and installing Xscreensaver to see what it would do. And no white screen! I noted the default settings, including a Zoom of 75%, then booted back into Mint 21 and applied the same settings.

And no white screens! By experimenting I determined that any Zoom setting from 80% to 99% triggers a white screen between images, 100% and 79% to 75% didn't. (I didn't try less than 75%.)

I used to use a Zoom of 85%, but I'll settle for 79%.

[SMG]

A little experimenting and I found a workaround:

If you are satisfied with the workaround, you can mark the topic solved by going to your first post in this topic, click the pencil icon, and add [SOLVED] to the beginning of the title so others know you are no longer seeking help on this issue.

[phd21]

Hi TrippH,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

You might consider using a more modern wallpaper application like the excellent "Variety" which is in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM). Newer versions may be available through their PPA. Variety has many good options including desktop quotes.

And, there are other Linux wallpaper applications as well.

Variety | News about Variety Wallpaper Changer
https://peterlevi.com/variety/

Best Applications to Manage Wallpapers in Ubuntu Linux - It's FOSS
https://itsfoss.com/applications-manage ... rs-ubuntu/

The 8 Best Linux Apps for Downloading and Managing Wallpapers
https://www.makeuseof.com/best-linux-ap ... allpapers/

Hope this helps ...

[TrippH]

I do use Variety and love it. GLSlideshow is part of the Xscreensaver package and is a screensaver. I'm an Olde Pharte with computers in general and like to have a slideshow of my wallpapers running when I'm not using my computer.