Tim:
I 'spose we should confirm, do you mean the screen saver is kicking in and you have to unlock it. Or are you getting logged out?
Beartooth
I'm actually getting logged out; I have to give my username (id est, confirm the default) and type my password every time.
Some xscreensavers were known to crash the display.
I've never seen that happen.
Well, the behaviour you've described is exactly the kind of thing that happened when they crashed. Then X would restart and you'd have to log in again.
It was usually just one or two of them that did it, and if people had xscreensavers set to pick one at random, rather than always use the same one, they'd get a surprise crash every now and then.
Screen savers that have locked the screen just ask you to re-enter your password, the username field is unchangeable from your own name.
I'd say, on the problem machine, try just picking a blank screen option, no other ones, and see if you still get the log outs.
My practice after installing every new release has been to tell dnf first to remove mate-screensaver and then to install xscreensaver. The latter is still working fine on the other two machines in front of me.
Same hardware? Same installs?
I've just reversed that: told dnf to install mate-screensaver and remove xscreensaver. I found out immediately that the former doesn't let me manage my screen in any of the ways I want.
Would it help to reboot? Could there be a problem with my KVM switch??
A reboot may help if you've done various installs, etc. This doesn't sound like a KVM issue.
I'm yet to try 38, but I am using mate on Fedora and CentOS, and its screen savers. The options have always been an adjustable time delay for how long before considering the computer idle, an option to activate the screen saver then, an option to lock the screen then. And, of course, which screen saver you'd like to use. Then, there's a button bringing up power management, with time delay options for putting the whole computer to sleep when inactive, time delay options for putting the display to sleep when inactive, and dimming the display by a selectable amount when idle.
Mostly the same options as any screen saver, I don't recall xscreensaver having other options, just more choices about what the screensavers look like. Though since I just blank the screen, I don't need anything fancy.