Re: Report: KDE 3.1.x/Woody Screensaver Situation
On Tuesday 02 March 2004 03:29, Nick Boyce wrote:
> Re: my previous reports to this list (Jan.2003 & Feb.2004) about how on
> my Woody system with KDE 3.1.x, (a) the OpenGL screensavers were very
> slow (unaccelerated), and (b) most of the ~160 screensavers listed in
> Kcontrol don't work at all :
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2003/debian-kde-200301/msg00718.html
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/2004/debian-kde-200402/msg00177.html
>
> I've been experimenting, and have made two improvements in the situation
> :
>
> 1) I now have beautiful glorious fully accelerated GL screensavers (the
> KDE ones anyway); I fixed the problem by installing a package I hadn't
> previously realised I needed : libglide3, "Graphics library for 3Dfx
> Voodoo based cards"; I suppose users of other brand graphics cards
> don't need any such "helper" library (or do they ?).
>
> 2) I managed to remove the entries for approx 145 screensavers which
> don't work from the list offered by the screensaver applet of Kcontrol
> (leaving 29 working native KDE screensavers). The screensavers listed
> by Kcontrol are those for which a ".desktop" file exists in
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers, so I just moved the "broken"
> ones out of the way.
Looks like kscreensaver should require xscreenssaver* not only recommend
them. Or split the package should be split into two pkgs native/external
screen savers.
>
> I tried to find out why exactly the broken screensavers are broken, and
> noted that the first few lines of a working screensaver .desktop file
> are like this :
>
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers$ more KPyro.desktop
> [Desktop Entry]
> Encoding=UTF-8
> Exec=kpyro.kss
> Icon=kscreensaver
> Type=Application
> Actions=Setup;InWindow;Root
> Name=Pyro
>
> and the "Exec" line names an executable file to be run :
>
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers$ which kpyro.kss
> /usr/bin/kpyro.kss
I've tried to run krandom.kss and it refused to run. I've started
kswarm as root -> okay; ^C -> keyboard dead :(
Looks like the *.kss are not meant to be run standalone. AFAIF FHS
requires/suggests to put the into /usr/lib/kscreensaver/
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLIBLIBRARIESFORPROGRAMMINGANDPA
>
> but for a "broken" screensaver (e.g. "Zoom"), the named executable :
>
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers$ more duff/zoom.desktop
> [Desktop Entry]
> Encoding=UTF-8
> Exec=zoom
> Icon=kscreensaver
> Type=Application
> Actions=InWindow;Root;Setup
> Name=Zoom
>
> doesn't exist in any directory on the path on my system :
>
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers$ which zoom
> /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers$
>
> I did a search of the system, and discovered that the zoom screensaver
> module *is* on my system, in a place which isn't on the path, so it
> doesn't work :
>
> /usr/lib/xscreensaver/zoom
Ah, according to FHS ;)
>
> Thus enlightened, I tried editing the zoom.desktop file to add the full
> path for the screensaver module to each "Exec" line (there are 4 such
> lines). This fixed the basic brokenness of the Zoom saver, such that
> it will now actually work if selected in Kcontrol - *but* didn't fix
> the Kcontrol screensaver preview pane (which stays dark), or the "Test"
> button (which does nothing at all)... and the "Setup" button just says
Did the preview and/or and test button ever work with xscreensavers?
If this is/was ever supported I assume that two of the exec lines
should have special options for xscreensaver to tell it run embeded
in a widget in kcontrol or in test more. Maybe some options have
changed?
> "No configuration available for Zoom". This situation seems to be the
> same for each of the xscreensaver modules - all the .desktop files are
> broken in the same way, and all can be "fixed" by adding the full path
> to the executable module.
>
> So where does "zoom.desktop" come from ?
>
> glimmer:~# dpkg -S zoom.desktop
> kscreensaver: /usr/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers/zoom.desktop
>
> glimmer:~# apt-cache policy kscreensaver
> kscreensaver:
> Installed: 4:3.1.4-0woody1
> Candidate: 4:3.1.4-0woody1
> Version Table:
> *** 4:3.1.4-0woody1 0
> 500 http://download.kde.org stable/main Packages
> 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>
> Okay .... it's a fault in the kscreensaver package at download.kde.org.
> Should I bug this ? Ralf ?
>
> End of report.
>
> Questions:
> (1) Should I fix all 145 broken xscreensaver .desktop files - or just
> move the xscreensaver modules to a directory on the path ?
IMO: file a bug report that the desktop files need a path. I don't
think that 3.1.4 get's fixed but problem is still in 3.2.0-1 pkgs.
> That would allow them to be selected directly from Kcontrol.
>
> (2) After that, is there any further need for the "XScreenSaver.desktop"
> file ? Its only purpose seems to be to allow Kcontrol to run
> "xscreensaver -setup" to give the horrible Motif-y xscreensaver
> configuration dialog ... which I suppose *does* provide the ability to
> have a subset of the modules selected, but that in turn only works if
> we have the xscreensaver daemon running ... which is equally horrible
> (ok - I mean "un-KDE-ish").
>
> (3) How come some people find all 160 screensavers work from Kcontrol
> without the problem I found ? (I'm thinking perhaps there are
> different .desktop files in other packagers' KDE debs ...)
Mhmm, after installing {k,x}screensaver I've the same problems as you
have with sarge + kscreensaver 3.2.0.1-1
Achim
>
> Cheers,
> Nick Boyce
> Bristol, UK
>
>
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