The splash screen is not the screensaver, I think. but a image background.jpg. And, I don't see the little blue man with this version, which was special prepared for the magazine and a conference in Europe, i think. But I'll get my sudo on and do some more experimenting.

I have tried the suggestions and all the options in Preferences>Desktop Preferences, but the only thing I found that works is boot: fb1024x768. Now the desktop icons I have chosen come up on the left and the control strip (my Mac dock) pops up from the bottom with a cursor tap there.

I did change to a single color for the desktop in the above mentioned selection, which eliminates the background.jp loading.

I was pretty dense to not recognize that the problem seems to be that the control icons are off the screen at the bottom. What is different in the DVD boot so that there is no difficulty there? (rhetorical ?)

The 7.5 DVD is bound in the April issue of Linux Pro Magazine. With a brief article by Klaus.
U.S. $12.99
Here in the U.S.A. it is at Barnes & Noble bookstores and, I am sure, elsewhere.

Part of the charm in Linux is making it do what you want it to, and you usually can.