I'm pretty sure this has came up before, but I can't seem to find it. So if this has been rehashed alot of times, feel free to send me to send me to the resolution.
Although 3D graphics cards are becoming more and more common, not all machines have them, or have 3D turned on. As such, since the default screensaver is random, it's only a matter of time before a machine pulls one up. For a machine with a 3D enabled card, this is no big deal, and can be quite pretty. For a machine that is doing all the 3D effects via software, it can slow the machine down, grind it to a halt, get it extremely hot, etc ...
Can Fedora pull out it's screensavers that need/want 3D hardware acceleration, and bundle them into a separate 3d-screensavers rpm?
If the answer is no, for whatever the reason, well, then it is. If the answer is yes, then I can probrubly help give a hand.
Troy
Troy Dawson (dawson@fnal.gov) said:
Although 3D graphics cards are becoming more and more common, not all machines have them, or have 3D turned on. As such, since the default screensaver is random, it's only a matter of time before a machine pulls one up. For a machine with a 3D enabled card, this is no big deal, and can be quite pretty. For a machine that is doing all the 3D effects via software, it can slow the machine down, grind it to a halt, get it extremely hot, etc ...
Can Fedora pull out it's screensavers that need/want 3D hardware acceleration, and bundle them into a separate 3d-screensavers rpm?
No, for various reasons, including:
- there's no good way to key packages as 'install this if you have hardware 3d support' - the 2d screensavers can (and do) chew just as much CPU as the 3d ones
Patches that allow switching automatically to the blank screensaver in the case of running on battery, etc. would certainly be considered; you'd probably want to hook into the dbus event framework for getting power events from the kernel in the future.
Bill
No, for various reasons, including:
- there's no good way to key packages as 'install this if you have hardware 3d support'
- the 2d screensavers can (and do) chew just as much CPU as the 3d ones
Patches that allow switching automatically to the blank screensaver in the case of running on battery, etc. would certainly be considered; you'd probably want to hook into the dbus event framework for getting power events from the kernel in the future.
I'd encourage the screensavers to be packaged as:
xscreensaver-blank allotherscreensavers.
I abhor ALL screensavers as they frequently cause lockups on odd video cards. I'd love to remove all the 'fun' ones and just have screenblank+lock in xscreensaver.
Do you think that would be permissable? Still have all the fun ones default to installed but be removable.
-sv
seth vidal wrote:
No, for various reasons, including:
- there's no good way to key packages as 'install this if you
have hardware 3d support'
- the 2d screensavers can (and do) chew just as much CPU as the 3d
ones
Patches that allow switching automatically to the blank screensaver in the case of running on battery, etc. would certainly be considered; you'd probably want to hook into the dbus event framework for getting power events from the kernel in the future.
I'd encourage the screensavers to be packaged as:
xscreensaver-blank allotherscreensavers.
I abhor ALL screensavers as they frequently cause lockups on odd video cards. I'd love to remove all the 'fun' ones and just have screenblank+lock in xscreensaver.
Do you think that would be permissable? Still have all the fun ones default to installed but be removable.
It would be nice to include a basic no-frills, low-cpu usage "Fedora" screensaver (just pop up the Fedora logo in random places for a short while) and the blank one, as well as a few of the nicer ones... then toss the rest in an extras package.
We could default to the Fedora-branded screensaver (it would simply use a PNG so that the image could be easily swapped out).
Of course, this is just my personal $0.02, so take that into account. (:
Garrett
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 17:49, Garrett LeSage wrote:
It would be nice to include a basic no-frills, low-cpu usage "Fedora" screensaver (just pop up the Fedora logo in random places for a short while) and the blank one, as well as a few of the nicer ones... then toss the rest in an extras package.
We could default to the Fedora-branded screensaver (it would simply use a PNG so that the image could be easily swapped out).
If this does get cleaned up, don't overlook the password prompt for unlocking a locked display. The current xscreensaver default does not fit very well with the look of Fedora.
Nathan
/ It would be nice to include a basic no-frills, low-cpu usage "Fedora" screensaver (just pop up the Fedora logo in random places for a short while) / I think we can live without constant reminder that this isn't windows. / and the blank one, as well as a few of the nicer ones... then toss the rest in an extras package. We could default to the Fedora-branded screensaver (it would simply use a PNG so that the image could be easily swapped out). Of course, this is just my personal $0.02, so take that into account. (: Garrett
/As for this seperate package business-- While I recognize the need for some hardware setups to avoid the 3D frills, it really seems irrelevant to be able to avoid all 3D and leave the low-cpu ones. Leave it as blankscreen for default- maybe to avoid woo-ing Fedora newcomers, and keeping them a little more focused on the task of learning a new operating system rather than getting their background and color scheme correct immediately after an install.
One of the notable points I read in the last couple messages was the one concerning the login-prompt to unlock the screen. I second any motion to redesign it as fit- because it does look a bit crude and old-school Gnome/Enlightenment-ish.
/As for this seperate package business-- While I recognize the need for some hardware setups to avoid the 3D frills, it really seems irrelevant to be able to avoid all 3D and leave the low-cpu ones. Leave it as blankscreen for default- maybe to avoid woo-ing Fedora newcomers, and keeping them a little more focused on the task of learning a new operating system rather than getting their background and color scheme correct immediately after an install.
I disagree. I manage a network of over 100 desktop linux machines. I'd like for my users to not decide they want one of the cool screensavers and suck the life out of a machine. Fine I can make policy, but it'd be even nicer to just NOT have those screensavers in the base package and just remove the package forever.
Remember, this isn't just about single user machines. If rhel is going to work in networks then Fedora Core needs to work there too.
-sv
It would be nice to include a basic no-frills, low-cpu usage "Fedora" screensaver (just pop up the Fedora logo in random places for a short while) and the blank one, as well as a few of the nicer ones... then toss the rest in an extras package.
I say junk the 'nicer' ones into the subpackage. Just a base: xscreensaver that is blank and 'fedora' and nothing else.
All the extra frilly screensavers get into a xscreensaver-extras package.
We could default to the Fedora-branded screensaver (it would simply use a PNG so that the image could be easily swapped out).
Sounds fine to me as long as I don't have a list of, conservatively, 180+ screensavers in the current pkg.
Speaking of that isn't there someone in the HIG people who thinks that a select list of 180 options is an abomination?
-sv
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 19:41, seth vidal wrote:
Sounds fine to me as long as I don't have a list of, conservatively, 180+ screensavers in the current pkg.
Speaking of that isn't there someone in the HIG people who thinks that a select list of 180 options is an abomination?
I can't speak for the KDE situation, but as far as GNOME goes, this will eventually be solved - they're just going to replace xscreensaver at some point (hopefully for 2.8, but who knows?) This message looks promising anyhow:
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-December/msg00017.ht...
So anyway, yeah, GNOME recognizes the problems with xscreensaver, and at some point, we'll get a nice replacement.
- jck
I can't speak for the KDE situation, but as far as GNOME goes, this will eventually be solved - they're just going to replace xscreensaver at some point (hopefully for 2.8, but who knows?) This message looks promising anyhow:
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-December/msg00017.ht...
So anyway, yeah, GNOME recognizes the problems with xscreensaver, and at some point, we'll get a nice replacement.
Glad to hear it. In the meantime, maybe we can axe some of the repetitive screensavers or even discuss some prioritization of them.
-sv
Jens Knutson (jensknutson@yahoo.com) said:
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-December/msg00017.ht...
So anyway, yeah, GNOME recognizes the problems with xscreensaver, and at some point, we'll get a nice replacement.
However, in the points listed there; there's not really that much there that doesn't already exist in xscreensaver (using generic hacks, and having a lib that makes writing some stuff easier - the lib just isn't packaged as such.)
Moreover, when you're talking about fast user switching, the screensaver is *not* the place to start solving the problem; what you really want to do is just build in VNC-like support to all sessions, and then just disconnect and switch to new local ones; this can be added to any screensaver rewrite post-fact, IMO.
IOW, I don't think he's looking at the issues mentioned in this thread.
Bill
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 20:34, Bill Nottingham wrote:
Jens Knutson (jensknutson@yahoo.com) said:
http://lists.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-December/msg00017.ht...
So anyway, yeah, GNOME recognizes the problems with xscreensaver, and at some point, we'll get a nice replacement.
However, in the points listed there; there's not really that much there that doesn't already exist in xscreensaver (using generic hacks, and having a lib that makes writing some stuff easier - the lib just isn't packaged as such.)
That doesn't really matter - hell, the code from Sven may end up just being an xcreensaver fork. The point is more that the project would be under GNOME control. This is not to knock Jamie or his project, they just have different goals; it's quite unlikely that Jamie will want to make the necessary changes to xscreensaver (like trimming the fat of some of the "lame" or problematic screensavers, changing the configuration GUI, etc) to make it the really great, user-oriented (as opposed to geek-oriented) screensaver that GNOME needs.
- jck
On Tue, 2003-12-16 at 03:57, Jens Knutson wrote:
under GNOME control. This is not to knock Jamie or his project, they just have different goals; it's quite unlikely that Jamie will want to make the necessary changes to xscreensaver (like trimming the fat of some of the "lame" or problematic screensavers, changing the configuration GUI, etc) to make it the really great, user-oriented (as opposed to geek-oriented) screensaver that GNOME needs.
Has anyone asked Jamie[1] about it? He is (was) a GNOME user the last time I checked.
That said, the GNOME desktop-devel-list discussion was in relation to gdmflexiserver and fast user switching. I forsee GNOME just writing some form of "wrapper" rather than removing xscreensaver altogether.
It will impact GNOME negatively if they replace xscreensaver, imho. Historical reasons among others...
[1] - Jamie Zawinski, author of xscreensaver
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 23:26, seth vidal wrote:
Patches that allow switching automatically to the blank screensaver in the case of running on battery, etc. would certainly be considered; you'd probably want to hook into the dbus event framework for getting power events from the kernel in the future.
I'd encourage the screensavers to be packaged as:
xscreensaver-blank allotherscreensavers.
xscreensaver-blank xscreensaver-2d xscreensaver-3d
I abhor ALL screensavers as they frequently cause lockups on odd video cards. I'd love to remove all the 'fun' ones and just have screenblank+lock in xscreensaver.
I'd like to warn those that Web Collage is something I love to use, but of late, more and more questionable images are being picked up!
Was at a training class recently, and some pornography was shown on the large screen!
This is something that can get employees in companies in trouble. Sexual harassment laws and so on tend to come into play, no?
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 22:05, Bill Nottingham wrote:
Can Fedora pull out it's screensavers that need/want 3D hardware acceleration, and bundle them into a separate 3d-screensavers rpm?
No, for various reasons, including:
- there's no good way to key packages as 'install this if you have hardware 3d support'
During the installation, kudzu detects what sort of video card a PC has. Wouldn't this be enough to see if you have hardware 3d support?
Otherwise, just default to installing 2d screensavers, and make the 3d an option.
- the 2d screensavers can (and do) chew just as much CPU as the 3d ones
Yes, but the 3d one's look *very* ugly on a 2d video card. Having a laptop sitting around and displaying some random 3d screensaver and not having it support it, makes it horrible. I can attest to this...
Patches that allow switching automatically to the blank screensaver in the case of running on battery, etc. would certainly be considered; you'd probably want to hook into the dbus event framework for getting power events from the kernel in the future.
Good idea.
Colin Charles (linux@bytebot.net) said:
During the installation, kudzu detects what sort of video card a PC has. Wouldn't this be enough to see if you have hardware 3d support?
Not necessarily. you'd need a separate table matching cards/drivers to 3D support. And then you'd get complaints from the R9800 and nVidia users that they weren't getting it. :)
Bill
Colin Charles wrote:
On Mon, 2003-12-15 at 22:05, Bill Nottingham wrote:
Can Fedora pull out it's screensavers that need/want 3D hardware acceleration, and bundle them into a separate 3d-screensavers rpm?
No, for various reasons, including:
- there's no good way to key packages as 'install this if you
have hardware 3d support'
During the installation, kudzu detects what sort of video card a PC has. Wouldn't this be enough to see if you have hardware 3d support?
Otherwise, just default to installing 2d screensavers, and make the 3d an option.
A much simpler and more elegant solution is to ship good screensavers (whether 3d or not) and have the OpenGL-based screensavers categorized as such. In terms of hardware support, set the default to a non-3d one (ideally a simple "Fedora" themed screensaver).
No hardware detection needed. 3d screensavers are still shipped, and a few would be included by default. No OpenGL screensaver crashes as a result, too...
The GNOME screensaver suggestion may help us out in this area (eventually), if it gets implemented: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-November/msg00407.htm...
Either way, a more sane default is a good thing. (:
Garrett
A much simpler and more elegant solution is to ship good screensavers (whether 3d or not) and have the OpenGL-based screensavers categorized as such. In terms of hardware support, set the default to a non-3d one (ideally a simple "Fedora" themed screensaver).
No hardware detection needed. 3d screensavers are still shipped, and a few would be included by default. No OpenGL screensaver crashes as a result, too...
The GNOME screensaver suggestion may help us out in this area (eventually), if it gets implemented: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2003-November/msg00407.htm...
Either way, a more sane default is a good thing. (:
No matter what happens, how about having the gnome and kde default screensaver be 'blank' or 'fedora' instead of 'random'
Thanks -sv
I'd suggest dropping most of the screensavers - just pick 5 or 6 good ones, and pull out the rest. Why both with a bunch of cheezy screensaves in the distribution? Trim down and simplify.
Steven Garrity
That's the key there, a few.
One Fedora Logo one (like Windoze XP :\ ) Few favs Maybe one to do random pictures from designated folder (correct me if
there is one already.... im lazy to look)
-----Original Message----- From: fedora-desktop-list-admin@redhat.com [mailto:fedora-desktop-list-admin@redhat.com] On Behalf Of Steven Garrity Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 8:46 PM To: fedora-desktop-list@redhat.com Subject: Re: 3D screensavers - separate package
I'd suggest dropping most of the screensavers - just pick 5 or 6 good ones, and pull out the rest. Why both with a bunch of cheezy screensaves in the distribution? Trim down and simplify.
Steven Garrity
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Troy Dawson