So you've recently upgraded Gnome and discovered that they have decided to
replace xscreensaver with gnome-screensaver and you don't like it. At this
point it time it seems most likely that you've just upgraded to Fedora 7 and
seen the change. There are a few guides that talk about adding xscreensaver's
screensavers to gnome-screensaver. This is not another one of those.

Unlike the apparent masses, I don't think gnome-screensaver is more elegant
than xscreensaver. Quite the reverse, actually. I liked xscreensaver and its
functionality, and I decided to switch back to it entirely. It wasn't really
difficult, there were just a few steps involved. I did this with Fedora 7 and
Gnome 2.18. It's all GUI, so don't be intimidated. You, too, can have your old
screensaver engine back.

First I changed my Gnome session to kill gnome-screensaver and start
xscreensaver because I had difficulty finding a way to permanently disable
xscreensaver. Do do this I went to the System menu, drilled down into the
Preferences sub-menu, drilled into the Personal sub-menu, and selected
Sessions. Under the Startup Programs tab, click the New button. Name this
command killall gnome-screensaver and set the command to /usr/bin/killall
gnome-screensaver, then click OK. Now click New again. Make this program's
name Start xscreensaver and make the command /usr/bin/xscreensaver -nosplash.
The next time you log into gnome you will kill all gnome-screensaver processes
and start xscreensaver. Xscreensaver cannot run twice, so don't worry about
logging in multiple times prior to rebooting.

Second, I changed the Screensaver menu item to launch my xscreensaver
preferences instead of gnome-screensaver's. Go to the System menu,
Preferences, Look and Feel, and Main Menu. In the tree on the left, drill into
System, Preferences, and click on Look and Feel. In the right hand pane,
double-click Screensaver. In the Launcher Properties window change the command
to /usr/bin/xscreensaver-demo, then click Close and Close again. Now you'll
see xscreensaver's preferences when you choose Screensaver from your
preferences menu.

Finally, I added a launcher to my panel for locking my screen. The launcher
that comes with Gnome triggers gnome-screensaver, not xscreensaver, so I
created this instead as I like locking my screen when I'm not looking at it.
Right-click your panel of choice and click Add to Panel. Select Custom
Application Launcher and click Add. The launcher's type is Application. Its
name is Lock Screen. Its command is /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command -lock. For a
comment I put Lock the screen. Click the button that says No Icon and choose
your favorite icon. I liked
/usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/actions/gnome-lockscreen.svg. Click OK and
Close. You can, of course, move that launcher wherever you need.

The fun part is it actually took longer to write this than it did to do it. I
hope someone somewhere found this helpful, but most of my readers would have
already known and the rest wouldn't care.