no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver

[George]

There is no settings button in gnome-screensaver, thus I am unable to change the settings for any screensaver.

Note: this bug is marked, upstream, as "won't fix." Here is the given explanation why: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#head-64ef29e28226e09a3b849d8f00726cc004625c62

[Till (tillm)]

I have to agree, we need some way to configure options for savers that are
configurable such a GLtext, Carousel. What's the point of these savers otherwise?

[Emmanuel Rodriguez (potyl)]

The lack of settings for some screen savers makes them less appealing, specially the ones that operate on pictures like GLSlideshow.
Please consider providing some basic configuration to the screen savers.

[Emmanuel Touzery (emmanuel-touzery)]

upstream rejected it WONTFIX:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316654

[François Tissandier (baloo)]

Ubuntu's philosophy is to offer a OS in as many languages as possible. Gnome Screensaver is not fitting with this philosophy, as you have to put your images in a "Pictures" directory if you want them to be displayed by the slideshow screensaver. I'm french, I don't have a "Pictures" directory, I have a "photos" one. A spanish user will have "fotos".

I'm OK to have simple applications, but it just simply doesn't work...

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

I think Ubuntu should deviate from upstream here and provide an options button (hopefully this will be done in time for dapper).

[GonzO (gonzo)]

I think Ubuntu should stick to hacking Xscreensaver if upstream is going to be this way. Gnome-Screensaver looks nice, but is simply so inadequate to the task at hand that it is effectively broken.

[Kristoffer Lundén (kristoffer-lunden)]

Agreed. We need to be able to change settings of screensavers, for many reasons: language/text, file locations and also performance reasons.

[Lukas Sabota (punkrockguy318)]

Most of the screensavers are useless without configuration. Would it be difficult to take the settings code from Xscreensaver and put it into Gnomescreensaver?

[Scott Robinson (scott-ubuntu)]

Language/text issues are totally different than this bug. If you want that issue to be addressed, I suggest opening a new report.

[IbeeX (ibrkanac)]

Why do developer need to invent "new features" in this example feature is again less is better, but this feature (no setup for screensavers) is hurting usability off screensaver, why did they even included changing off screensavers if less is better why not joust Off and ON? Actually I think that sometimes less is much worse. So put back screensaver configurations.

[Rafał Próchniak (burlap)]

And there are screensavers that grab your desktop (or any other image): lack of settings option leaves them with "control picture" (see for example "slider"), which is 1. confusing, 2. far from professional. If we want to oversimplify, my suggestion is to preconfigure configurable screensavers (grabbing desktop image for example, this is probably what most of the users expect anyway)
(power users that can replace gnome-screensaver with xscreensaver anyway)

And still, leave at least an option to enable/disable specific screensavers - not only GL screensavers are resource-eating (Distort is one of the examples)

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

no, grabbing the desktop by default is evil behavior and considered a security flaw by many people, thats why ther last changes were made to xscreensaver-data and xscreensaver-gl, the image handling is already solved, please see the changelogs

[LKRaider (paul-eipper)]

I agree, the lack of configuration is a major usability bug.
I would consider gnome-screensaver not ready for release as it is.

[Peter de Kraker (peterdekraker)]

I agree too, This is not acceptable for a screensaver manager. Considering the non-constructive attitude of the gnome-screensaver developer, we should really make this a big point as ubuntu users.
I don't think it's a good idea to start our own development, but we should really get this working before dapper releases. It is a severe issue: For 'simple' users screensavers are a major joy and have indeed relevance for a enjoyable ubuntu experience.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Upstream bug is rejected. Upstream author points to http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions

[James Jones (jamesjones01)]

The current behavior of gnome-screensaver is inconsistent with the rest of GNOME 2.14, which gives the system administrator control over what the user can do with pessulus and sabayon. gnome-screensaver wires in the bare minimum: the user can either not have a screensaver at all, have the screen blank out, pick one particular screensaver, or let gnome-screensaver choose at random, with no control whatsoever over the set from which the selection occurs.

If the sysadmin is supposed to have control, then gnome-screensaver should give it to him or her. For many of us, we are the sysadmins, and our computers are at home, but gnome-screensaver takes control away from us!

[essexman (ralphsmail)]

At the very least this should be an administrator choice. Maybe the administrator has the option to give individual user configuration. This would certainly be wanted where I work and it would cause me no issues at home.

[joehill (joseph-hill)]

I really think a fork is in order here. I've heard dozens of people agreeing that this philosophy (as Linus says "interface Nazis") is wrong, but only a couple fanatics who say "you crybabies, real men don't even need GUIs, much less stupid screensavers or the right to choose how many cows they want bouncing on their screen! Just use Windows or KDE if you need configuration options!"

If you don't like options, don't use them. Maybe have an option to disable them. But I see no point in removing options just because someone has realized in a zen moment that options are for losers.

I think most users are going to uninstall the "debian-desktop" package that depends on this package and install the xscreen-savers and not care about dbus and all that stuff.

[darx (rabidphage)]

I'm a bioinformatics student and i've been planning to depend on the molecule screensaver to view and memorize 3d structures. What is the use of a screensaver without configuration options???
Is there any hack to get around this????????

[George (george-alink)]

install xscreensaver and remove gnome screensaver

cheers,

george

On 14 Apr 2006, at 22:26, darx wrote:

> I'm a bioinformatics student and i've been planning to depend on
> the molecule screensaver to view and memorize 3d structures. What
> is the use of a screensaver without configuration options???
> Is there any hack to get around this????????
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/22007

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

you can edit the /usr/share/gnome-screensaver/themes/molecule.desktop
file (add the wanted commandline parameters to the Exec= option)

even upstream wont get around to provide a gui option to adjust the screensaver settings, its just not implemented yet. some people subscribed to that bug should calm their wording here or provide a patch, just ranting wont solve it.

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

At 2006-04-14 21:50:05 UTC George wrote: "install xscreensaver and remove gnome screensaver"

In Dapper, gnome-screensaver is a dependency of ubuntu-desktop and so it cannot be uninstalled without consequenses. Right now I have both installed; this is a sub-optimal solution.

I would recommend that the Ubuntu developers either make their own reduced version of xscreensaver or transplant this feature into Ubuntu's version of gnome-screensaver.

As it exists now, gnome-screensaver is oversimplified to the point of being barely usable.

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

I just checked https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperReleaseSchedule and we're into FeatureFreeze already, so its too late to modify these packages... As an alternative suggestion that would satisfy the requirements of those wanting to adjust their screensavers, could the ubuntu-desktop metapackage be slightly modified changing:

Depends: gnome-screensaver

to this:

Depends: gnome-screensaver | xscreensaver

(thus allowing one or the other)

[Elijah Lofgren (elijahlofgren)]

"could the ubuntu-desktop metapackage be slightly modified changing:

Depends: gnome-screensaver

to this:

Depends: gnome-screensaver | xscreensaver"

This sounds like the best solution at this point. Ship gnome-screensaver by default, but let people replace it with xscreensaver if they want configuration options. :)

Should I change this bug to be against ubuntu-desktup?

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

this has nothing to do with the bug at all, if you want file a separate bug, but since our metapackages dont work that way, i doubt we can do it anyway. note also that xscreensaver was sceduled to be demoted to universe and in fact is only in main as a xubuntu dependency.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

sorry, that was meant to be: if you want file a separate bug, feel free to do so.

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

Oliver Grawert wrote: "this has nothing to do with the bug at all"

As far as getting a good work-around until this bug is resolved, yes, it does :)

"our metapackages dont work that way, i doubt we can do it anyway"

??? AFAIK, any debian package can have "or" requirements; consider apache2 which according to Synaptic:

Depends: apache2-mpm-worker (=2.0.55-4) | apache2-mpm-prefork (= 2.0.55-4) | apache2-mpm-perchild (= 2.0.55-4)

"note also that xscreensaver was sceduled to be demoted to universe and in fact is only in main as a xubuntu dependency"

Well, its nice and convenient that it hasn't been demoted yet, so that the change to ubuntu-desktop can be made ;)

Also might I suggest that xscreensaver shouldn't be demoted until after this bug is fixed :)

I will file a bug on ubuntu-desktop momentarily.

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

I filed the suggested ubuntu-desktop change as Bug #42668

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

thanks for that, you can belive me if i say that neither our seeds nor the metapackages built from them support "or" dependencys, there are workarounds (see totem).

your proposal has nothing to do with adding the settings management for the hacks to gnome-screensaver and simply doesnt belong in this bug.

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

I must add my two cents to this and say that it is a huge disappointment that the screensavers configuration isn't present. Many screensavers are pointless without the configuration/settings, and many of the possible settings for the screensavers are what make them interesting at all in the first place.

Please bring this back :-( I miss the utility that was in breezy for settings/screensavers

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

A comment was added to Bug #34276 (a duplicate of this bug) by Bobby Feagin that should be added here as no one has mentioned it yet:

---
Another issue with the new gnome-screensaver. I always use the random screensaver mode, but now I can't pick which screensavers I want enabled. There are several installed screensavers that I don't like or cause problems, and I don't want them included in the random rotation. Since these are bundled together in packages, I can't uninstall the ones I don't like without hacking source code. Much less user friendly than giving us simple configuration options.
---

This is not really a separate issue however; when "Random" is selected, clicking a Settings button should bring up a box to specifically allow you to choose which screensavers you want.

[Jordan (jordanu)]

The developer on bugzilla stated "Also, unless you are motivated enough to actually write some code or pay/convince someone else to do it for you then you are less likely to get what you want."

I don't really know how this sort of thing works, but I will pitch in $40 to get real functionality in gnome-screensaver ( I would help code but I don't consider myself a good enough programmer yet ), if that is what is needed to motivate somebody to fork or fix this problem. Anybody else willing to contribute? Is this just a stupid idea?

[gerard (zzking)]

Yes that's an idea, but what I don't understand is this step back,
because in Breezy we were able to select whatever screensaver we wanted???

Jordan a écrit :
> The developer on bugzilla stated "Also, unless you are motivated enough
> to actually write some code or pay/convince someone else to do it for
> you then you are less likely to get what you want."
>
> I don't really know how this sort of thing works, but I will pitch in
> $40 to get real functionality in gnome-screensaver ( I would help code
> but I don't consider myself a good enough programmer yet ), if that is
> what is needed to motivate somebody to fork or fix this problem. Anybody
> else willing to contribute? Is this just a stupid idea?
>
>

[Computer Geek (kibmcz)]

At least allow gnome-screensaver to be removed seperate of ubuntu-desktop... then i could install xscreensaver and use that instead.

[Ryan Rawdon (flieslikeabrick)]

ubuntu-desktop is just a meta-package, removing it will not break your system

On 8/11/06, Computer Geek <email address hidden> wrote:
> At least allow gnome-screensaver to be removed seperate of ubuntu-
> desktop... then i could install xscreensaver and use that instead.
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://launchpad.net/bugs/22007
>

--
Ryan Rawdon
Computer and Systems Engineering, IT
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute '08

[Jordan (jordanu)]

"Most of the screensavers are useless without configuration. Would it be difficult to take the settings code from Xscreensaver and put it into Gnomescreensaver"

No, in fact I have made a program that lets you change your screensaver settings in xscreensaver and then updates the corrosponding gnome-screensaver .desktop files accordingly.

That way you get the functionality of xscreensaver while still being able to use gnome power-management. The main problems with it are

1: That it requires root privaleges to edit the .desktop files
2: That it cannot save seperate settings for separate accounts
3: It is written in java because that is all I currently know, and is poorly programmed because I was trying to get it done quickly and frankly I am not an experienced programmer.

So we could concievably keep xscreensaver-demo while still using gnome-screensaver, but it is a dirty hack in my opinion

If anyone want's to use this or make their own version of it here are the files.

http://trogdoor.googlepages.com/ConfigSaver.java (source )
http://trogdoor.googlepages.com/ConfigSaver.class ( application )
http://trogdoor.googlepages.com/ConfigSaver ( script that just starts xscreensaver-demo then runs configsaver when xscreensaver-demo is closed )

[kresp0 (kresp0)]

I'll pay another 40$ for to get real functionality in gnome-screensaver.

[5of0 (cincodenada+ubuntu)]

As a relatively new Ubuntu user, I am befuddled as to why this is even an issue. As has been stated time and time again, many (if not most) screensavers are useless without config options.
I need to be able to configure how many cows, what my text says, what pictures to show...it's stupid to say that obviously, GNOME users would rather muddle around with config files than have a GUI. I like to call myself a geek, but I'm not opposed to a GUI - If it's so obvious that config files are the way to go, why even have gnome-screensaver? Why not just have the user find a list of screensavers and specify that in a config file? And why even have GNOME? Obviously, it would be better just to do everything from terminal, since we are so opposed to GUI's.
It's ridiculous. If I read the way-above linked FAQ...I have to create or find a whole theme to change my preferences? Ugh! If this is typical, I see why Torvalds was so anti-GNOME (http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/13/1340215). When I first read that, I thought "that's crazy. No one could be that stupid." Well...I'd say, if Windoze XP (drives me nuts because I can't configure anything) has the option for something, GNOME can definitely support it.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

I'm working on a full substitution for the gnome-screensaver-preferences application. It still has some bugs and it cannot yet manage the screensaver's daemon specific features but it will let you tweak your screensavers' settings.

http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfx-screensaver-settings_0.1.tar.gz

Comments and suggestions are welcomed.

[kresp0 (kresp0)]

Please, can you give the sources?

Thank you for your work,

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

kresp0,

The sources (for REALBasic 2006 r3) can be found here:
http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfx-screensaver-settings_0.1.src.tar.gz

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

would it be possible to write it in a non proproetary language so we could actually include/distribute it ?

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

I was hoping to do so... but I've been using Linux as my primary OS for just a week or so.
I will need some more time to get used to it and learn the basics.

Any suggestions on where/how to start?

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

looking at python, pygtk and glade should be a good start or alternatively if you really like C code, look at C and glade.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Thank you Oliver.
I have already started "playing" with Phyton.

How about C#?
Would that be considered as a "propietary" language? I guess the fact that you need a +30MB runtime may be a no-go...

I understand this is not the place to discuss this so I'll head over to MOTU's web site and start reading.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

C# would be fine, the problem with realbasic is that we cant build packages from realbasic sourcecode, the realbasic compiler is proprietary even if the langauge and source for relabasic apps is freely available ... our buildsystems wont be able to handle stuff like that.

[Scott Beamer (angrykeyboarder)]

Just my $.02. I've been in "discussion" with the developer (http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316654) on and off for close to a year on this.

And his rather odd position continues to be "any screensaver theme that requires configuration is inherently broken."

Recently he suggested someone else fix his work. An Ubuntu user I was hoping I could persuade someone at Ubuntu to do just that.

[Noah Slater (nslater)]

From a personal email from the upstream author:

Yes. That bug is a request to support the xscreensaver configuration mechanism. We don't want to support that for a variety of reasons.

I've opened bug 354805 [1] and put some thoughts on how one might implement configuration support in a sensible way that is consistent with KDE and can store settings in gconf. I'd accept patches for that. It really is a completely different thing than the xscreensaver config support.

[1] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=354805

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

In the meantime can Ubuntu just drop gnome-screensaver, please ?
If not, can ubuntu please drop the "broken" screensavers that need configuring?

Otherwise it's just taunting new users who can't file bug reports and really turns off users who do can file and read the bug reports.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

I have just finished a Mono 2.0 / C# / Gtk# version of my implementation of the gnome-screensaver application.
This version is a replica of the standard gnome-screensaver with the addition of the "Settings" button.

The program can be downloaded from this address: http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfxscreensaver-settings.tar.gz
And the sources are available here: http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfxscreensaver-settings-src.tar.gz
And here's a screenshot: http://software.xfx.net/utilities/sss/images/sss_ss.gif

Oliver, what would be the steps for me to properly distribute it?
That is, create a DEB package and "post it" or "upload it" to some "official" repository.

[kresp0 (kresp0)]

Thank you xfx!

Please, add one more feature and I will pay you the 40$ promised:

"when "Random" is selected, clicking a Settings button should bring up a box to specifically allow you to choose which screensavers you want."

About the "screensaver-settings.readme" file: in the Linux-UNIX world, usually the readme file is simply named README and there is no need to give execution permission.

Thank you again,

[kresp0 (kresp0)]

I forgot to ask: What is the license of this software? If you are not sure, please use GPL.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

Thank-you for doing this.

$10 from me when there are deb-src available whether by ubuntu or hosted
yourself.
(i.e. so I can do: apt-get -b source)

Sam

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

kresp0:
I'm glad you liked it... ;)

The idea about the "Random" feature sounds very nice -- I'll go ahead and implement it right away.
I'll also change the name of the README file.

As for the license: I don't know much about the different types of licenses but be rest assured that the software is (and will always be) completely free of charge.
I'll take some time this weekend to read more about the different licenses (I know there are tons of them) and see which one better fits this type of application.

--------------------------
Sam:
I know; I also want to provide it as a DEB package (both the binary and the source). Unfortunately, as much as I have searched I haven't been abel to find much information about packaging Mono-based applications.

--------------------------

I forgot to mention two important additional links:
- xFX Screensaver Settings home page: http://software.xfx.net/utilities/sss/index.htm
- Direct contact / support / bug-reports: http://software.xfx.net/ss.htm?redir=sss

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Ok, version 0.2.1 is now ready and it supports the ability to choose which screensavers you want to use while in Random mode.

I have, however, found a terrible problem:
As you may already know, in order to be able to adjust the screensavers' settings you need to gksudo the application. But, doing so will cause the changes made to the made window (that is, select the default screen saver, set the activation delay, etc...) to be applied to the root account.

I will need to investigate a little further and see how we can run the program without sudoing it and then be able to gain enough privileges to alter the screensavers' settings.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Phew! After reading half the internet I was finally able to create a .deb package for the program.

You can download the package from: http://software.xfx.net/ftp/screensaver-settings_0.2.2-1_i386.deb
Also, you should be able to build it on your own by downloading the tarball (http://software.xfx.net/ftp/screensaver-settings_0.2.2-1.tar.gz), uncompressing it and compiling the sources yourself -- the ability to use 'apt-get -b' will not be available until "someone" hosts the .deb package on a repository.
Finally, if you prefer, you can download the Monodevelop project (http://software.xfx.net/ftp/xfxscreensaver-settings-src.tar.gz).

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Oh... I forgot to mention that version 0.2.2 no longer requires to be run using gksudo!
Whenever required, the program will request elevated privileges and you will have to provide you admin/root password to allow it to save the changes you make to your screensavers.

Enjoy!

[cablop (cablop)]

A little question... does this tool works in other linux distros???

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Oliver has asked me to comment on the UI for the new screensaver settings. I have several suggestions, but I do not think any of them should block this code being introduced to Ubuntu, because it implements such an important missing feature without critical problems. (I understand that other things may hold it up, such as Edubuntu not having room to include Mono.) Furthermore, some of these suggestions are problems with gnome-screensaver already, not with the rewrite in particular.

* "xFX Screensaver Settings" should be "Screensaver". ("xFX" is, alas, inappropriate branding. "Settings" is probably redundant, because there is no other "Screensaver" window.)

* When using control A can (or should) disable control B, A should be above B, to prevent people from wasting time twiddling things that end up inapplicable. Here, "Activate the screensaver when the computer is idle" determines whether *any* of the other controls are relevant, so it should go at the top, not near the bottom.

* "Regard the computer as idle after:" violates Ockham's UI Razor in that it needlessly introduces a new entity: something mysterious that does "regarding" of idle state. This can be avoided by merging with the "Activate the screensaver" checkbox:

    [/] When the computer has been idle for: [10 minutes :^]

The menu would be disabled when the checkbox was unchecked. (Using a menu like this, instead of a slider, would require offering a selection of likely values.)

* The rewrite says "10" without saying what the units are. This can be fixed by implementing the previous suggestion (or by adding units to the live slider value).

* I suggest pulling "Blank screen" and "Random" out of the list of screensavers. Instead have a separate "Show:" menu, immediately under the menu I suggested above, with three options: "Blank screen", "One screensaver", and "Randomly-chosen screensaver". When "Blank screen" is chosen, the list of screensavers (and the "Properties" button) is disabled; when "One screensaver" is chosen, the list behaves as normal; and when "Random screensaver" is chosen, each screensaver in the list begins with a checkbox for determining whether it is part of the random selection.

* "Properties" should be "Options...", and "Name Of Screensaver Here Properties" should be "Name Of Screensaver Here Options". (Everywhere except Microsoft and Windows software, "properties" are things that might or might not be changeable, making it a needlessly vague term when referring solely to things that *are* changeable.)

* In the options window, the name of the screensaver should be displayed only once (in the title bar), not twice. (This also means removing the separator. Actually, both separators should go.)

* In the options window, the various options should have 6 pixels between them, both horizontally and vertically.

* When an option is represented by a slider, its label should be followed by a colon. For example, "Display Speed" should be "Display Speed:". (Actually, it should be "Display speed:" in sentence case, but if you're auto-generating the options GUI there's probably little you can do about that.)

* It's not clear what the "Description" button does.

* "Fu...

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

I just wanted to thank everybody for your donations... I truly appreciate them!

I've had a pretty rough week; a high voltage surge damaged most of my equipment (two gorgeous ViewSonic 21" monitors, two power supplies, one video card and several other minor stuff) and I'm still in the process of recuperating from the looses.

As soon as I "settle in" I will take Matthew's suggestions and start working on the next version.

Thank you Matthew for your great review; I'm honoured that you took the time to review the program and provide so many helpful suggestions/comments.

[Crashmaxx (crashmaxx)]

Thank you sooooo much xfx for finally fixing this silliness! Perhaps you can submit this to the gnome-screensaver developer and see if it can be merged into gnome in some way? He said the problem was that no one would write the code so this should show him.

And one more suggestion people would want, make another slider for "Lock Screen" so that you can have it lock so many minutes after the screensaver comes on, and not only with it.

I'm going to make a post in the How To section of the forums so everyone can switch to this if they want.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

xfx, I tried to paypal you but the paypent was returned.

Sam

[cablop (cablop)]

Two things:

1.- I can mirror this file if you give me a deb file :D
2.- You can use moneybrookers instead of paypal, it's easier and cheaper

Awe, sorry, i see there's already a deb for this issue... hehe, then i'll post it on my web page, don't worry :D

[Kieran Fleming (kieran-fleming)]

xfx, can you please think more about making your code open source?
It might be a bit much to ask all this from you when all it came from was a stubborn gnome developer, but you could help the Ubuntu community out if you did this.

[cablop (cablop)]

I thought the code was open source already, it isn't?

I didn't mirrored it cause I was too busy and have little problems, but i'm
still interested in doing that

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

It is open-source already. Sources are avialable on his website:

http://xfx.net/utilities/sss/

On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 11:11 PM, cablop <email address hidden> wrote:

> I thought the code was open source already, it isn't?
>
> I didn't mirrored it cause I was too busy and have little problems, but
> i'm
> still interested in doing that
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

Vadim Peretokin: it is not enough for source code to be available; to be "open" it needs to be licensed under an open source license (that is, it allows redistribution and modification), otherwise its just 'freeware'. The DEB file lacks a proper copyright file for the status of the code it contains. Unless proper license info becomes available, it can't be accepted into the Ubuntu repositories.

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

Oh. Well, I thought it was open-source since there's no visible license,
hence, it's in the public domain - and that means freely distributable.

Here's what the xfx said to me a while ago:

"That's great!

If you have the means, please, feel free to redistribute your 64bit binary
version of the program."

So, the "means" here would be the repositories, and since we have them,
we're free to distribute the program.

On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 12:55 PM, Conrad Knauer <email address hidden> wrote:

> Vadim Peretokin: it is not enough for source code to be available; to be
> "open" it needs to be licensed under an open source license (that is, it
> allows redistribution and modification), otherwise its just 'freeware'.
> The DEB file lacks a proper copyright file for the status of the code it
> contains. Unless proper license info becomes available, it can't be
> accepted into the Ubuntu repositories.
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Reinhard Tartler (siretart)]

Vadim Peretokin <email address hidden> writes:

> Oh. Well, I thought it was open-source since there's no visible license,
> hence, it's in the public domain - and that means freely
> distributable.

This assumption does not hold. We require explicit copyright notices for
every code, and cannot assume "public domain" if none is given.

--
Gruesse/greetings,
Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

Adding to what Reinhard Tartler said, it is my understanding that copyright remains with the author unless they specifically renounce it (e.g. 'I release this work into the public domain'). What you quoted is basically that the author has given you permission to distribute a 64-bit version of the program. He doesn't explicitly extend that to others and doesn't (appear to) give you permission to alter it further. Like I said, 'freeware' as it stands right now.

You should contact the author (the sooner the better!) and discuss what license they would like their software under. These links might help:

http://www.opensource.org/licenses
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html (see the chart)

[Chad Bernier (berniercr)]

question. what is there to stop someone else from taking someone's
unlicensed work, adding their own license to it, and calling it theirs? how
do you prove copyright in cases like this?

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 4:43 PM, Conrad Knauer <email address hidden> wrote:

> Adding to what Reinhard Tartler said, it is my understanding that
> copyright remains with the author unless they specifically renounce it
> (e.g. 'I release this work into the public domain'). What you quoted is
> basically that the author has given you permission to distribute a
> 64-bit version of the program. He doesn't explicitly extend that to
> others and doesn't (appear to) give you permission to alter it further.
> Like I said, 'freeware' as it stands right now.
>
> You should contact the author (the sooner the better!) and discuss what
> license they would like their software under. These links might help:
>
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html (see the
> chart)
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

Copyright is with the original author. You can't just take someone else's work, plaster a license on it and call it yours and expect the law (or anyone really!) to recognize it :) Proving copyright is simple enough; just show when/where the original was published and by whom.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

In the case of this package, the DEB packaging itself is separate (and separately licensed) from the code it contains. The problem here is not plagiarism, but an unspecified license for the bulk of the code inside the DEB.

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

I did get in touch with the author, and he said that he'll release the next
version under a license, probably LGPL. That would be okay, yeah?

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 5:40 PM, Conrad Knauer <email address hidden> wrote:

> Copyright is with the original author. You can't just take someone
> else's work, plaster a license on it and call it yours and expect the
> law (or anyone really!) to recognize it :) Proving copyright is simple
> enough; just show when/where the original was published and by whom.
>
> See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
> See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
>
> In the case of this package, the DEB packaging itself is separate (and
> separately licensed) from the code it contains. The problem here is not
> plagiarism, but an unspecified license for the bulk of the code inside
> the DEB.
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Conrad Knauer (atheoi)]

LGPL is very nice, yes :)

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

* Vadim Peretokin wrote, On 05/03/08 04:39:
> I did get in touch with the author, and he said that he'll release the next
> version under a license, probably LGPL. That would be okay, yeah?
>
Maybe the author will also release this version under LGPL?

I've seen lots of people never get round to the next version.

If he releases this version then it doesn't matter if he doesn't get
round to it.

Sam

[Marco Lazzaroni (marcolazzaroni)]

I understand the thoughts of the author, but the ones who don't care so much about philosophy can do the following.
For the slideshow screensaver, there's a little workaround: put symbolic links in your default picture directory.
Also, you can modify the .desktop files in order to pass parameters to the screensaver.
E.g.
edit /usr/share/applications/screensavers/personal-slideshow.desktop
at the line
Exec=slideshow
add a parameter:
Exec=slideshow --location=/your/fav/pic/dir

It's dirty, you need super user rights, and you modify it for each user but it works. Well you could call a personalised script in order to call different parameters for each user.

[Carl Williams (carloz46)]

This has been outstanding since 2005, it's clearly not going to be fixed by the gnome-screensaver maintainter(s), which either means no-one cares enough to submit patches or the patches are consistently rejected.

If the former, I'm guessing it's 'cos everyone's going back to xscreensaver, which is what I plan to do if I can't get something better working.

I'm a longterm (since the early 90s) Linux user, but new to Ubuntu, appalled by how much configurability Gnome's window manager UI has lost since I last used it yonks ago. It was bad enough then to send me scurrying away to Enlightenment, though I still used the GTK and a lot of Gnome widgetry.

I *really* don't see why gnome-screensaver, and various other gnome frontend things, can't have a "more configurable" mode or a "simple" mode, selectable at people's discretion. One of the posts on the gnome-screensaver bug list discussion cited above makes a very eloquent case against the "less is more" gnome philosophy, in that people learning a new UI like to play with appearance settings as part of their familiarization with the UI and to satisfy a need to mark out "personal space". People don't install and run Linux distributions to "be like everyone else". Heck: even Windows users don't like to "be like everyone else", but prefer to customize their environment; Apple users like to customize their environment; users of mobile phones, for goodness sake, prefer to be able to customize their environment.

Despite the huge contributions made by the Gnome team, people get awfully pissy when stuff is "taken away". I thought this was something we'd all learned time and again in various environments. Like, for Apple OSX - which I also use - when Apple decided that Quicktime users were going to have to pay extra for full-screen mode, everyone went and downloaded VLC until Apple relented and put it back. Like for Windows... all that DRM rubbish in Vista, people went back to XP or got Linux...

For all the reasons cited above in this discssion and elsewhere, while I agree 100% that custom setup should never be a *requirement* for a screen saver, and in many cases it can be undesirable if it's avoidable, nonetheless, flexibility demands that customization be *possible* for those screen savers which benefit from it.

For the language-related aspects, e.g. the name of the folder in which to find pictures for a slideshow, perhaps this should be detected by the screensaver or configured when the screensaver is added (oh, except there's no GUI facility to add or delete screensavers. Ho hum.)

People clearly prefer to have a "settings" button. Some people clearly *need* to have a settings button. Omitting it is, well, puzzling.

I've yet to read anything from anyone angrily complaining that they don't like the "settings" button in xscreensaver, and demanding that someone remove it. Ditto, the Apple OSX and Windows forums are curiously devoid of complaints about too much facility to customize - mebbe lock-down minded IT dept managers in banks and so on complain about these things, but presumably only on locked-down private forums to which I have no access.

While I'm at it, a related bug is the absence of ...

[Carl Williams (carloz46)]

Further to the above, I'd not read far enough down the above discussion to see the work of "xfx"- which appears to have it covered. Hopefully this will be GPL licensed and rolled into Ubuntu in place of gnome-screensaver.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

I tried o paypal that author to show thanks, but he didn't collect the payment and it as returned.

I've got 25 dollars waiting if he gpl's what's he's already released.

Sam

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Hello all,

Well, today I had some time to spare to I decided to do some work with the screensaver-settings program.

So, I just wanted to let everyone know that I have just released version 0.3
This released incorporates many (not all) of the UI suggestions made by Matthew (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/22007/comments/60). I'm not really pleased with the way the program looks now so if anyone has any suggestions...

Also, this release is being distributed under the GNU Lesser General Public License.

Sam: I truly appreciate your donation -- unfortunately PayPal gave an error when I tried to collect it.

[Vadim Peretokin (vperetokin)]

Thank you very much!

Hopefully someone can package it into Ubuntu.

[cablop (cablop)]

Try Moneybookers instead of Paypal... Maybe that can help

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Thank you for the suggestion cablop.

It was my mistake and I was able to receive Sam's donation. Thank you VERY much Sam!!!

[Tarnay Kálmán (tarnay-kalman)]

I can't find any option to use screen grabs instead of pictures (even in sss0.3)... Is it somehow possible?

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Kalmar: which screensaver are you trying to configure?

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

I forgot to mention that bugs/problems with screensaver-setting should be reported here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/screensaver-settings

[James_pic (james-pic)]

xFX: I thought you might like to know that the current version of gnome-screensaver can accept themes from ~/.local/share/applications/screensavers, as well as /usr/share/applications/screensavers. I've attached a hacked version of screensaver-settings, which modifies themes in this folder rather than in /usr/share/... . I'm not an experienced programmer, so it's kinda kludgy -- e.g, it can't create the directory ~/.local/share/applications/screensavers if it doesn't already exist -- but otherwise it seems to work more or less as expected, so it can persistently modify screensaver settings (per user) without root access.

It's really just a proof of concept, but it'd be nice to have something like this in the next version of screensaver-settings

[Chad Bernier (berniercr)]

I would just like to say that I'd really like this package to be in
some kind of a repository. I find things in the "local or obsolete"
section annoying.

On 6/11/08, James_pic <email address hidden> wrote:
> xFX: I thought you might like to know that the current version of gnome-
> screensaver can accept themes from
> ~/.local/share/applications/screensavers, as well as
> /usr/share/applications/screensavers. I've attached a hacked version of
> screensaver-settings, which modifies themes in this folder rather than
> in /usr/share/... . I'm not an experienced programmer, so it's kinda
> kludgy -- e.g, it can't create the directory
> ~/.local/share/applications/screensavers if it doesn't already exist --
> but otherwise it seems to work more or less as expected, so it can
> persistently modify screensaver settings (per user) without root access.
>
> It's really just a proof of concept, but it'd be nice to have something
> like this in the next version of screensaver-settings
>
> ** Attachment added: "screensaver-settings-0.3.0-modified.tar.bz2"
>
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/15200400/screensaver-settings-0.3.0-modified.tar.bz2
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

james_pic: thank you for the information -- I didn't know that.
I will check your changes and, as time permits it, I will re-release screensaver-settings with your changes.

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i can confirm that this is still not solved properly and many screensavers are still completely broken with non-english installs, while others work but are quite useless without customized settings.

i'd like to see this solved and -- i'd appreciate a better summary of the discussion in the original description.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

I don't think this screensaver-settings app is the right approach unless we want to diverge from upstream GNOME forever. Therefore this bug is not trivially fixable, so it does not qualify as a paper cut.

[Kriston Rehberg (me-kriston)]

Most screen savers have options to make them more appealing, better functioning, or even to get them to function at all (like picture slideshows on non-English systems). It's incomprehensible that we cannot access these options from the Screensaver applet with a little "Settings" button like KDE and most other desktops.

[Irios (irios)]

Why is it that we *have* to be stuck with the suckiest screensaver selector
of any platform? We've got some of the coolest screensavers, but some are
really very bad; however, there's no way to make a selection, and all users
are stuck with choosing just one, or letting any one pop up at random. All
because a square headed upstream maintainer has determined It Is Bad for Us.

Who cares about diverging from Gnome upstream in this? Don't we diverge from
upstream with the notifier, for example, which is far more important? Let's
kick the screen saver selector in the butt! Then we may push it upstream,
and everything will be dandy.

[Chad Bernier (berniercr)]

I liked the app solution. I checked it out when I was using Ubuntu. I don't
have a linux right now, and I am not sure which I will pick when I put it on
again. I don't think this is an issue though. There are more important
things to work on. Screen savers haven't been necessary for years, and they
are often annoying. Either you set it to a really long timeout, or they pop
up in the middle of a TV show. I want the screen either on, or off. Save
some electricity and let your monitor go blank, sleep, or off. If you like a
certain screen saver that much, you can install the stuff needed to make it
work right. Linux is all about messing with things anyways.

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Irios <email address hidden> wrote:

> Why is it that we *have* to be stuck with the suckiest screensaver selector
> of any platform? We've got some of the coolest screensavers, but some are
> really very bad; however, there's no way to make a selection, and all users
> are stuck with choosing just one, or letting any one pop up at random. All
> because a square headed upstream maintainer has determined It Is Bad for
> Us.
>
> Who cares about diverging from Gnome upstream in this? Don't we diverge
> from
> upstream with the notifier, for example, which is far more important? Let's
> kick the screen saver selector in the butt! Then we may push it upstream,
> and everything will be dandy.
>
> --
> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Paul Bransford (draeath)]

Chad Bernier wrote:
> I liked the app solution. I checked it out when I was using Ubuntu. I don't
> have a linux right now, and I am not sure which I will pick when I put it on
> again. I don't think this is an issue though. There are more important
> things to work on. Screen savers haven't been necessary for years, and they
> are often annoying. Either you set it to a really long timeout, or they pop
> up in the middle of a TV show. I want the screen either on, or off. Save
> some electricity and let your monitor go blank, sleep, or off. If you like a
> certain screen saver that much, you can install the stuff needed to make it
> work right. Linux is all about messing with things anyways.
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 3:33 PM, Irios <email address hidden> wrote:
>
>> Why is it that we *have* to be stuck with the suckiest screensaver selector
>> of any platform? We've got some of the coolest screensavers, but some are
>> really very bad; however, there's no way to make a selection, and all users
>> are stuck with choosing just one, or letting any one pop up at random. All
>> because a square headed upstream maintainer has determined It Is Bad for
>> Us.
>>
>> Who cares about diverging from Gnome upstream in this? Don't we diverge
>> from
>> upstream with the notifier, for example, which is far more important? Let's
>> kick the screen saver selector in the butt! Then we may push it upstream,
>> and everything will be dandy.
>>
>> --
>> no 'Settings' button in gnome-screensaver
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/22007
>> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
>> of the bug.
>>
>

I wonder if a solution would be thus:

Leave the screensaver config program alone, but create an additional
program that edits a particular .desktop file. A user simply sets their
screensaver to this special one, and uses this hypothetical tool to
configure the screensaver as they actually like. gnome-screensaver need
not know of this at all.

[Irios (irios)]

But *WHY* do we have to run around in rings to do something that should be
simple, just not to miff inoperative upstream maintenance. Let's DIVERGE if
we want something good, while upstrem pushes something bad.

Really, the screensaver is not important. Fine, then, let's fix it too,
because this Ubuntu Papercuts program is for fixing unimportant things that
are badly done and are pebbles in the sandal on the road to a totally smooth
user experience. And it should be a very simple fix, it is not as we're
trying to reimplement the window manager (which has been done for the
Netbook Release).

Leave the screensaver config program alone, but create an additional
> program that edits a particular .desktop file. A user simply sets their
> screensaver to this special one, and uses this hypothetical tool to
> configure the screensaver as they actually like. gnome-screensaver need
> not know of this at all.
>

[cablop (cablop)]

Sincerely i think this is one of the worst things open source can do, to not to solve something cause it is not critical... so how can we demonstrate this operative system could be a replacement to some other privative operative systems if we are forcing the user to lose his freedom and stuck with what the developers offer??

We have nice screensavers in Ubuntu, but w can use them, so we are filling our hard disk with unreachable unusable things...

also this bug is two regressions, this bug is becoming worst release by realease, did you notice that you not only lost the settings button (we had it before) is lost (first regression) but we can't choose screensavers with initial lowercase character (we had them before too, regression number two)?

but installed screensavers could be configured, except gnome interface is not allowing us to do it, and also those lowercased initial screensavers are installed but gnome interface don't let us choose them...

and sorry if i can sound angry but this bug is going to be FOUR years old and still has no solution...

[Marco Lazzaroni (marcolazzaroni)]

@cablop:
The reason this is not solved is not because this is not critical. This is kept this way because the philosophy of this package requires not to have settings button.

This is a basic set of basic screensavers that must have no settings. This has to be as simple as possible. If you want a screensaver with settings, you have to install a different package.

So here there are no lazy developers. There are developers that followed a line that requires no settings button.

You may agree or not with it (and we can discuss about it) but please take note that this is a well-thought choice, not a lazy choice.

[cablop (cablop)]

This is not exactly true, i saw the tunnel screensaver there, and i know
that screensaver has settings!

also system installs the other screensavers, popsquares for example, but we
can't use it cause its initial is lowercase and the interface don't load
them

i think it is not logic to install something you can't easily reach,
configure or even use!

[Michael Nagel (nailor)]

i want to point out that this bug not only causes inconveniences because some screensavers do not perform as good as they could, but some screensavers are outright broken.

the screensaver to show pictures from the user directory must be configured before it can work for non-english installs because the folder name is hardcoded and incorrect for non-english installs. one could of course improve the code to determine the correct folder but it is still likely that the user puts his pictures elsewhere or does not want to display all of them but just a subset.

so making screensavers not configurable is problematic for two reasons:
1. the settings chosen right now are broken under certain circumstances and there needs to be a way to correct them
2. it is questionable if screensaver selection can ever be simplified so far that no configuration is needed. people want to personalize their screensaver just as they want to personalize their desktop. i do not see why this should be technically restricted.

if our opinion is that much diverging from upstreams opinion maybe our code should be diverging, too. however i cannot believe that they neglect the need for configurability that vehemently. we should contact them first.

[Carl Williams (carloz46)]

Good grief, I've just noticed that people are still complaining about this bug! Clearly, they're not going to fix it, as they've decided that that's the way it should be. Move on, folks, I ditched most of the UI aspects of Gnome ages ago, they became increasingly dumbed-down and unusable for me. Clearly the Gnome people are very happy with them, and the libraries are good, so just pick and choose and use something more suitable, after all this fundamental choice is one of the more conspicuous advantages of OSS - you don't *need* to get upset with someone's braindead approach when they clearly have ideological issues with changing it, because *you're not locked in to using it*. Life's far too short to bother with trying to change the mind of the gnome screensaver people, particularly as they haven't budged in what, four years? C'mon folk - *they* like it s dumb as possible. Fork the project, or just use something else like the rest of the world, total waste of time filing bug reports because they *really* *don't* *want* screensavers to be in any way configurable, (nor, apparently, do they believe anyone speaks or should speak anything but English, per Michael Nagel's comment, above.)

*I* happen to think they're being idiots about this, but I feel I'd be the bigger idiot for wasting my time harping on at them when their mind is clearly and immovably made up on the subject.

The fix for this bug is simple: Use a different screensaver.

[hikaricore (hikaricore)]

There's no excuse for this to still be an issue only due to the stubborn and ignorant Gnome devs.
This very pigheadedness if the reason I switched to KDE, I won't be even considering Gnome again until this silliness is over.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

It's like Apple's refusal to do cut-n-paste on the iPhone.

It will happen in the end but someone may have to get promoted - or leave - before it happens.

Sam

[Brian (x-brian)]

This is _still_ a problem, going on half a decade.

PLEASE, Ubuntu FORK THIS! The GNOME dev has his head up his own @$$ and will never make this work correctly. How it's possible for GNOME to think this is the correct way for the screensaver app to work is beyond me, but that's what they think. I run xscreensaver, but the session menu won't lock the screen without gnome-screensaver. I would love to get a working gnome-screensaver.

[cablop (cablop)]

This kind of bugs are the sensible proof of why Linux is not yet a replacement for Windows or OSX.

Can't Ubuntu fork it?

The reasons we need such settings button:

1. "I'll gift you a book, but you are not allowed to read it"
Ubuntu came with CUSTOMIZABLE screensavers but with no way to access how to configure them. So why you made something that is not being to be used?

2. "Forcing just one screensaver model to increase the market?" They said screensavers must work just out of the box, with default settings, this is nonsense. We are used to configurable screensavers in other operative systems, this is what people know to use... and developers know to develop, this is not going to increase the market, this is going to shrink it. Developers won't develop something with features users can't access.

3. "You have to live with it..." Hey, are you telling us that the screensavers defaults is what WE want? can't i just select a shape changer screensaver to show shapes in Y favorite color? I'm not a computer, there are no defaults for aesthetics in human beings, i like blue, but my sister likes green, but we like the same screensaver... and the worst, we can't set it in our fav colors...

4. "cuting our freedom" Yes, just that. We use to argue against Windows and closed source software cause they cut our freedom... but sigh, if we can't even configure our screensaver... how can i feel like i'm really free using a software?

5. "we are setting what we think you need" Hey wait... don't FORCE to me those defaults, this is MY computer, i want to be able to CONFIGURE what is MINE

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

sudo aptitude purge gnome-screensaver && sudo aptitude install xscreensaver

Look, choice!

[Paul Bransford (draeath)]

I agree that this is an overly aged and annoying bug, but the rhetoric isn't really necessary.

As far as using xscreensaver - sure, it works. But it's nasty looking (gtk 1.x?) and not very well integrated with Gnome. The lock screen reminds me of the '90s!

[Carey (sqrfolkdnc-gsb)]

Modern monitors don't suffer burn, and nearly all computer monitors are "green" and set to automatically power down anyway, so perhaps the screen saver should be removed completely (other than the stub that shuts off power)

In these times, screen savers are no more than a passive game, they serve no useful or needed function.

If the developers will affirm their automobiles came from the dealer with all the radio stations preset and cannot be changed, I will accept that the screen savers not be non configurable. I would prefer no radio to preset stations.

If the developers will affirm that the web browser they use came with preset favorites that cannot be changed, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable. I would prefer no favorites to unchangeable ones.

If the developers will affirm that in the next release of Ubuntu, all the games will have fixed options, and can only be played in one way, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable. I would prefer...you get the drift.

If the developers of Ubuntu will lock down the directory tree so that users cannot create any new sub-directories, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable.

If the developers of ubuntu wish to position Ubuntu as a serious business operating system, they must eliminate all games from the installation, and remove all installable games packages. As long as games are included and others can easily be installed, then configuration for screensavers should be available. The screensaver is no different than a game. Note that if configurability has to be installed as an add-on package, business don't allow users to install software, so it will be non-configurable to them.

Carey Schug

[mac (amartin83)]

The reason why they didn't make this for so long time is either they don't want us to use Ubuntu (shame) or they don't know how to do this (which seems to be simple), or they have no time (5 years [first post 2005] may be not enough for them :D ). Or they just simply pis.. at us (shame again).

[Brian (x-brian)]

Please, someone either fix this of fix that:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-session/+bug/528094

This is a significant user interface bug in my opinion, and the alternative (xscreensaver) suffers from a bug as well. I'd personally prefer to have xscreensaver called properly from the session menu and just ignore the gnome idiocy.

[Carlos Manuel Pires (cmpsalvestrini-gmail)]

This is moronic. Screensavers are supposed to be configurable. Period. Fix the damn screensaver applet.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

Relax. They (upstream) have a fix - of course!

This bug has been marked as a secret show-case bug for some MS fan-boi (or Ballmer on his swan song) to pull out as evidence as to how kack "linux" (Gnome) is because you can't even configure your screen-saver.

As soon as that happens, the patch will be applied to steal away the thunder and undermine MS marketing strategy.

This big is also part of the strategy for bug #1 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

All this is obvious (and I shouldn't have to explain it) if you read between-the-lines here: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScreensaver/FrequentlyAskedQuestions#head-64ef29e28226e09a3b849d8f00726cc004625c62

And realize that most of the reasons given are pretty much dumb reasons that only appeal to powerful entities who need help controlling their serfs and in no way relate to giving competent power over their own operating system.

Once you realise that, it all makes perfect sense!

[Brian (x-brian)]

Marc, are you saying now that Ubuntu won't fix this either? I know the Gnome people/person has his head up his @$$ on this, but now Canonical has joined him up there? I understand this is not high priority (though it should be if Ubuntu ever wants to compete with Windows/MacOS), but it is definitely a bug that should be fixed. Especially when replacing with xscreensaver doesn't work fully:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-session/+bug/528094

Personally, I put up with the above bug rather than the completely useless gnome-screensaver. In fact, if xscreensaver caused my computer to burst into flames every time it activated, I'd still use it before using gnome-screensaver, on principle.

[Danté (dante-ashton)]

Listen, I'm really, REALLY sorry if the GNOME 'Vision' conflicts with reality. But this is reality, and the vision must fit into it; we have many screensavers that REQUIRE configuration; like the dozens of picture screensavers.. How about RSS screensavers? Sure, equip them with a certain feed, but to many people, we don't LIKE the default feed. Nor can we change it. Do you have any idea how sick I am of many of the picture screen-savers just loading the same series of Space photos?

This really is just silly. I'm all for not-confusing-the-user but I'm NOT too keen on frustrating them, either.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

I see two photo screensavers. The first one is called F-Spot photos and uses the "Favorites" tag in F-Spot. The second one is called "Pictures folder" and simply displays the pictures it finds in your ~/Pictures directory. Seriously, what's to configure? If you want a different picture directory, just put a symlink in ~/Pictures.

What is this "RSS Screensaver" you are talking about?

[Carlos Manuel Pires (cmpsalvestrini-gmail)]

I think the inability to set the preferences in a screensaver is shortsighted at best. Efforts should be made to discard the "won't fix" upstream and, perhaps, develop an in-house tweak to add the missing functionality. I won't comment on the Gnome team's reasons for crippling the functionality because IMHO they are to put it mildly, bozotic, nearsighted and ridiculous.

[Carlos Manuel Pires (cmpsalvestrini-gmail)]

This bug was marked WONTFIX by the maintainer. I suggest alternatives be found, since the original maintainer no longer cares about gnome-screensaver and has an absolutist philosophy about screensaver preferences.

[Danté (dante-ashton)]

There are many, many screensavers in the Ubuntu repo, and many more on various websites. An example of an RSS Screensaver is FontGlide, Noseguy, Phospher....seriously, there are loads.

So what if I don't want to have my pictures folder as a basis for the screensaver? What if I would like to only show a subdirectory? Setting up a symlink is not intutive. Grasping for a clearly defined configuration panel is, I'd wager.

[Carlos Manuel Pires (cmpsalvestrini-gmail)]

"Modern monitors don't suffer burn, and nearly all computer monitors are "green" and set to automatically power down anyway, so perhaps the screen saver should be removed completely (other than the stub that shuts off power)

In these times, screen savers are no more than a passive game, they serve no useful or needed function.

If the developers will affirm their automobiles came from the dealer with all the radio stations preset and cannot be changed, I will accept that the screen savers not be non configurable. I would prefer no radio to preset stations.

If the developers will affirm that the web browser they use came with preset favorites that cannot be changed, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable. I would prefer no favorites to unchangeable ones.

If the developers will affirm that in the next release of Ubuntu, all the games will have fixed options, and can only be played in one way, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable. I would prefer...you get the drift.

If the developers of Ubuntu will lock down the directory tree so that users cannot create any new sub-directories, then I will accept that the screen savers not be configurable.

If the developers of ubuntu wish to position Ubuntu as a serious business operating system, they must eliminate all games from the installation, and remove all installable games packages. As long as games are included and others can easily be installed, then configuration for screensavers should be available. The screensaver is no different than a game. Note that if configurability has to be installed as an add-on package, business don't allow users to install software, so it will be non-configurable to them.

Carey Schug"

I agree with 99% of what Carey said.

[Carlos Manuel Pires (cmpsalvestrini-gmail)]

"I don't have any plans to support this. My view is that any screensaver theme
that requires configuration is inherently broken."

As said by the original gnome-screensaver maintainer... In 2006. IMHO this person has some serious control issues.

[Danté (dante-ashton)]

Screensavers are mainly a passive activity, yes. I happen to be in love with the Eletric Sheep screensaver, if only because I find it hypnotising.

Schools and other educational institutions around me are still using the old CRT monitors. As such, I would argue agaisn't the removal of screensavers.

[cablop (cablop)]

Won't fix?

Why... hey, that's just to bring back the old button that launched the settings config of each screensaver...

No matter what a few people believe, some screensavers have settings to configure, some people love screensavers, i do!

But we want to keep freedom to choose how our screensavers will work.

I wanted to use that GL slideshow one, but to a custom folder, i don't want to show all my pictures collection, just a subset of it... and it's too sad to realize Gnome is unwilling to give us the freedom to choose...

[Brian (x-brian)]

https://help.launchpad.net/Bugs/Statuses
Won't Fix: this is acknowledged as a genuine bug but the project has no plans to fix it.

It is unclear whether this means "we don't have time for this" or if it means "don't even bother submitting a fix, you'll just be wasting your time."

I think I will have to look carefully at Fedora, since so many professional software packages are designed for Red Hat and Fedora is similar. Heck, maybe I'll just go with Red Hat. It must be better than Oracle Enterprise Linux--I can't imagine how it could be worse! It's a big pain in my rear to set everything up the way I need/want, but the earlier I switch the less painful I guess.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

  On 31/08/10 15:32, Marc Deslauriers wrote:
> I see two photo screensavers. The first one is called F-Spot photos and
> uses the "Favorites" tag in F-Spot. The second one is called "Pictures
> folder" and simply displays the pictures it finds in your ~/Pictures
> directory. Seriously, what's to configure? If you want a different
> picture directory, just put a symlink in ~/Pictures.

I used to use photo-screensaver when I could configure it to spend only
1 second per photo.
Now I don't use a screen-saver because I don't like the dozens of
seconds it spends per photo.

[cablop (cablop)]

Seroiusly, Gnome is suffering of some sort of anorexia.
The project wanted to remove and declutter itself.
And that's ok.
But then, when it is ok, it started to cut more and more of itself. We say, hey Gnome, you are cute that way! but Gnome keeps telling, i'm still fat...
We need options. Simple options, yes, but options. We can't be forced to use something that is mostly an aestethic thing nowadays if we cannot setup it to suit OUR sense of aesthetics.

Also, Marc... is simpliciy, the kind of simplicity Gnome is looking for, to tell us to go down and edit the code of an screensaver? from my point of view that's not simple... and your answer was rude... something like "I'm not willing to code that, so go yourself and deal with the barebones of it"...

In my opinion... if you are not willing to enhance the user experience... why not to give this project to somebody else?

[Brian (x-brian)]

With the bug listed as "Won't Fix" this bug report does not show up in the list of open bugs under gnome-screensaver any more. You have to click "Advanced search" and choose to display "Won't Fix" bugs to see it.

Only 10 bugs that haven't had a fix released have more users affected (including "invalid" bugs)

Only 1 bug has more comments, only 5 have more duplicates, and only 10 have more heat. This is out of 636 bugs that aren't marked "Fix Released."

It seems this is a real concern among many Ubuntu/Gnome users, and something should be done about it.

Since Marc changed this bug to "Won't fix" the only comment we've seen from him actually included, "Seriously, what's to configure?" Those of us using xscreensaver get to see the wonderful configuration options for not only the slide show screen savers, but all the rest as well. If you install a more robust collection of screensavers, there will be much more to configure. Why not just completely remove all of them and use nothing but blank screen? With blank screen, there is certainly nothing to configure, so that would solve this bug I guess. If anyone wanted to use a computer with this strange 1980's-era technology of "Screen Savers" they could just install a real app like xscreensaver.

[zcat (zcat)]

Back when I first started running Ubuntu the screensavers _WERE_ configurable.

So was the login window.

I could choose what application ran when I inserted a DVD, eg have it run dvd:rip rather than the small number of programs that Ubuntu has deemed an acceptable 'player' for DVDs.

I could configure dial-up networking, and it worked on all the ISP's I ever needed to use it with.

It's not just this bug, but this bug is one glaring example of the whole problem.

This obsession with "removing" all of the configurability is driving people away from Ubuntu. You're perpetuating the myth (by making it not a myth at all) that either Linux is greatly inferior to Windows because it has so fewer options, or that nothing useful can be done in Linux without resorting to a terminal.

Please. Fix this BUG.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

I think it needs a little more publicity. Perhaps on http://blogs.msdn.com/ or New York Times technology pages (they've not published much on GNU/Linux since 2009).

"You're too smart for Linux if you can configure a screen-saver" is a suitable headline.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

Maybe the Ubuntu bug is that Ubuntu ships Gnome-screensaver at all.

[cablop (cablop)]

I agree, the bug is to have that screensaver manager and not a better one

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

I've filed a new bug 634108 (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/634108) suggesting that gnome-screensaver be deprecated and replaced with xscreensaver.

[James M. Roche (paedomorphosis)]

Five years... Thank you, Gnome, for protecting us from the terrifying complexity of having options, and the potential difficulty of attempting to use software that has actual functionality. Where would we be without you to protect us from our own foolishness?

This whole situation is preposterous. It makes me glad Ubuntu is moving away from Gnome. Please Ubuntu devs, make a functional Unity screensaver chooser to replace the entirely useless gnome-screensaver!

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

@James: I understand your frustration -- that's why I'm still maintaining the screen-saver settings application: http://whenimbored.xfx.net/2011/05/i-want-my-screensaver-settings/
Although not a solution, it is at least a workaround...

[James M. Roche (paedomorphosis)]

Oh yeah, thanks for making to effort to do something instead of just complaining like the rest of us! :) I downloaded the deb, but I'm using 64-bit... I guess I should download the tarball and compile, etc?

[Brian (x-brian)]

@xfx: the last time I had looked at screensaver-settings, it wasn't working for the current release of Ubuntu--I'm glad it seems to be in development. This should get into the repository; is there any way to get this into the Canonical repository?

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

@James: I don't see why the 32bit version shouldn't work under 64bit Ubuntu. I guess I will have to download it and test it...
But, before I do, could you please download the binary package (http://whenimbored.xfx.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=8) and see if it works?
To test it, simply launch the program by executing "mono screensaver-settings.exe" from a terminal.

[Carey Schug (sqrfolkdnc)]

Reading the wikipedia article about the unity desktop makes me wonder if I should be looking for a new distro to run. Sounds like more choices are being taken away.

[Brian (x-brian)]

@xfx: I just tried to run the 32-bit screensaver-settings.exe on 64-bit Ubuntu 10.10, and it failed.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

@Brian & @James: Ok. I will download Ubuntu 64bit now and run some tests but, please, let's try to keep any bug reports relating to screensaver-settings out of this forum.
You can continue post your bug reports, comments and suggestions on my personal blog: http://whenimbored.xfx.net/2011/05/i-want-my-screensaver-settings/ or through the official web site: http://xfx.net/ss.htm?redir=sss.

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

@Brian & @James: Please download the binary and see if this one corrects the problem under x64: http://software.xfx.net/ftp/screensaver-settings-bin.tar.gz

Please, remember not to post bugs/comments regarding screensaver-settings here. I don't the admins/mods would like that.

[Sam Liddicott (sam-liddicott)]

Perhaps there should be a "talk" section associated with each bug in launchpad, which could hold the meta-conversation?

[xfx (morphx-gmail)]

Is there any experienced packager that could take a look at the new x86/x64 DEB packages I created for version 0.3.4 and let me know if they need some modifications/additions in order to be considered for addition into the Debian repository?

The latest version of the .deb packages can be downloaded from this page (at the bottom): http://whenimbored.xfx.net/2011/05/i-want-my-screensaver-settings/

[Brian (x-brian)]

@xfx:

This seems to work partially for me on:
$ uname -srvmo
Linux 2.6.35-30-generic #59-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 30 19:00:03 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

(Maverick Meerkat)

I have gnome-screensaver installed, and I also had to install gnome-desktop-sharp2 after seeing an error referencing "gnomedesktop-sharp" when I tried to run screensaver-settings from the terminal. Once I installed gnome-desktop-sharp2 I was able to start screensaver-settings from the terminal and the GUI interface seemed to work fully.

However, I set the time to activate the screensaver to "1" (minute?) and did not see the screensaver activate. I tried both with and without gnome-screensaver installed. Did not try with xscreensaver installed. Also, the interface did not seem to get the cycle delay for randomly chosen screensavers to stick. I have not done a reboot or log out/in. Got work to do, can't interrupt that.

For now I am going back to xscreensaver, but thanks for the work you've done on this. I think getting Canonical to help might be tough because of Mono/C#. But certainly would be great to figure out what packages are required for this to work, and a quick overview of installation/use would help. I'd recommend setting up a vanilla VM under VirtualBox, for example, and seeing what has to be done to get this working correctly.

Of course this bug still wouldn't be solved since gnome-screensaver itself is forever completely broken, but at least there would be a workaround.

[era (era)]

Reverting apparently mistaken affects: change. If you really mean to assign this to Baltix, please explain why.

[Filippo Cattaneo (n1jpr)]

Is this set up on purpose to make GNU-Linux in general, and Gnome in particular, sociologically dysfunctional as to make Windows look better by comparison? And, yes, I _DO_ believe that this belongs in a technical discussion in a bug-tracking system.

[Chad Bernier (berniercr)]

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