Bug#294182: system lockup whenever "molecule" runs (even in screensaver preview window)

[John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>]

When the X server hangs, there's no way to affect it from the console.
Ctrl-alt-backspace doesn't work.  Nothing moves on the display.  However,
I can login to the machine over the net.  When I do, the system is
idle (the X server isn't burning CPU).  I see an xscreensaver process
but don't see any screensaver running.  The xscreensaver process is
sitting in a select(4, [3], NULL, NULL, NULL).

This bug has been reported two years ago, one year ago, and seventy
days ago (by different people).  I can reproduce it easily on a
machine that I'm happy to give a developer access to.  It makes the
entire machine unusable without a reboot (or intervention from across
the network), from the screen saver.  Can someone spare a few hours to
debug it?

I'm encountering this bug with more screensavers than just "molecule"
(which I turned off with chmod 0).  There's one that displays text
"Star Wars" fashion, fading off into infinity, with some rambling
about Debian as the text.  It hangs the X server too.  I don't know its
name.

	John Gilmore