How To Install xscreensaver on Debian 9
Introduction
In this tutorial we learn how to install xscreensaver on Debian 9.
What is xscreensaver
xscreensaver is:
XScreenSaver is a modular screen saver and locker for X11, containing more than 200 screen savers.
This package includes the bare minimum needed to blank and lock your screen. Install this package if you want to use the xscreensaver engine to control screen blanking and launching display modes (“hacks”). If you only want to use other screensaver engines, you don’t need to install this package.
The graphical display modes are in the xscreensaver-data, xscreensaver-data-extra, xscreensaver-gl and xscreensaver-gl-extra packages.
There are three methods to install xscreensaver on Debian 9. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.
Install xscreensaver Using apt-get
Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.
sudo apt-get update
After updating apt database, We can install xscreensaver using apt-get by running the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install xscreensaver
Install xscreensaver Using apt
Update apt database with apt using the following command.
sudo apt update
After updating apt database, We can install xscreensaver using apt by running the following command:
sudo apt -y install xscreensaver
Install xscreensaver Using aptitude
If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.
sudo aptitude update
After updating apt database, We can install xscreensaver using aptitude by running the following command:
sudo aptitude -y install xscreensaver
How To Uninstall xscreensaver on Debian 9
To uninstall only the xscreensaver package we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get remove xscreensaver
Uninstall xscreensaver And Its Dependencies
To uninstall xscreensaver and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 9, we can use the command below:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove xscreensaver
Remove xscreensaver Configurations and Data
To remove xscreensaver configuration and data from Debian 9 we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y purge xscreensaver
Remove xscreensaver configuration, data, and all of its dependencies
We can use the following command to remove xscreensaver configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:
sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge xscreensaver
Dependencies
xscreensaver have the following dependencies:
References
Summary
In this tutorial we learn how to install xscreensaver package on Debian 9 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.