Dropping gnome-screensaver in lucid?

[Charlie Kravetz]

On Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:17:26 +0100
Vincent <mailinglists at vinnl.nl> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 6:09 PM, Lionel Le Folgoc <mrpouit at ubuntu.com>wrote:
> 
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > Since karmic, gnome-screensaver heavily relies on gnome-session (for
> > example to get the inactivity time). Therefore, it won't automatically
> > activate on Xfce.  Xubuntu 9.10 has been released with this bug [1]; I
> > would like to avoid releasing lucid with the same broken feature.
> >
> > Here are some possible alternatives:
> >  (1) patch gnome-screensaver to restore the old behavior;
> >  (2) switch to xscreensaver by default;
> >  (3) develop another Xfce-oriented screensaver;
> >  (4) do nothing.
> >
> > IMHO, (1) isn't going to happen: upstream won't change it back, I don't
> > have time to patch gnome-screensaver nor to waste time to try to
> > convince some people of the desktop team to apply it (but if you have,
> > please step up)…
> >
> > (3) looks sexy, but is a bit unwise wrt to security matters.
> > Screensavers are usually used to lock screens, so are sensitive pieces
> > of software. I'm not sure it'll be ready (and secure enough) for lucid…
> >
> > (2) xscreensaver isn't really pretty, but works fine. At the moment, I
> > don't know if it can be manually customized by the artwork team, any
> > hints?  (there is already [2] to track this)
> >
> > (4) isn't really an option. If nothing has been achieved or no decision
> > has been made before the UserInterfaceFreeze (March 4th, one week before
> > the first beta), I think I'll set xscreensaver by default (2), because
> > we can't release lucid as broken as karmic.
> >
> >
> > These are some quick thoughts. If you think I've missed an obvious
> > alternative, have better ideas or have already started to work on
> > something, feel free to react.
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Lionel
> >
> >
> > [1] <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xubuntu-meta/+bug/493573>
> > [2]
> > <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xubuntu-artwork/+bug/361678>
> >
> > --
> >
> 
> #2 sounds good to me. The dialog apparently can be themed to some extent
> [3]. Not sure if this requires another package and, if so, whether that
> would be doable.
> 
> The loss in accessibility is a shame, but the only alternative to that is
> including both gnome-screensaver (with the risks mentioned in [3]) and
> gnome-session. I don't think that's really an option - hopefully it's not
> too big of a hassle for people with disabilities to install them manually.
> 
> [3] http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/toolkits.html
> 

Considering that xscreensaver has many themes already, and that
gnome-screensaver is broken, can we please have xscreensaver. I have
removed gnome-screensaver and installed xscreensaver many times,
because xscreensaver does work. It works on older hardware too.

Thanks,

-- 
Charlie Kravetz 
Linux Registered User Number 425914          [http://counter.li.org/]
Never let anyone steal your DREAM.           [http://keepingdreams.com]