Hi, I'm currently moving all our local school's desktop clients from Slackware 14.1 to CentOS 7 + Xfce. Right now I'm fine-tuning the default user profile. I have a problem with XScreenSaver. The application per se works very well. Only there's a hard-coded pop-up window that reminds the user that he's not running the latest version. So, if I'm running version 5.36 as provided by the EPEL repo and not the latest and greatest 5.38 as provided upstream, I get a pestering pop-up window informing me that YOUR VERSION OF XSCREENSAVER IS VERY OLD. This functionality is apparently hard-coded, since there's no way to deactivating it. The Slackware distribution seems to have solved the problem by promising upstream to keep things up-to-date. For the moment I simply work without it, because I'm annoyed by my users phoning me and asking me what's this thing with their screensaver being too old. As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo. Any thoughts about this? Cheers, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info at microlinux.fr T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32
On Apr 8, 2018, at 07:54, Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> wrote:> > Hi, > > I'm currently moving all our local school's desktop clients from > Slackware 14.1 to CentOS 7 + Xfce. Right now I'm fine-tuning the default > user profile. > > I have a problem with XScreenSaver. The application per se works very > well. Only there's a hard-coded pop-up window that reminds the user that > he's not running the latest version. So, if I'm running version 5.36 as > provided by the EPEL repo and not the latest and greatest 5.38 as > provided upstream, I get a pestering pop-up window informing me that > YOUR VERSION OF XSCREENSAVER IS VERY OLD. This functionality is > apparently hard-coded, since there's no way to deactivating it. > > The Slackware distribution seems to have solved the problem by promising > upstream to keep things up-to-date. > > For the moment I simply work without it, because I'm annoyed by my users > phoning me and asking me what's this thing with their screensaver being > too old. > > As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. > > 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. > > 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. > > 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo. > > Any thoughts about this?It appears that the spec file actually patches xscreensaver to change the time bomb date to be the build time, so you?d only need to rebuild it to make it stop. (The EPEL maintainer could too) https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/xscreensaver/blob/epel7/f/xscreensaver.spec#_440 JWZ would prefer people not patch out the time bomb (and stop calling the time bomb a time bomb, too bad). He?d rather people not use xscreensaver at all. He probably is annoyed about getting bug reports from users of distros that have an out of date version, but I have to say his solution is pretty caustic. -- Jonathan Billings
On Sun, April 8, 2018 6:54 am, Nicolas Kovacs wrote:> Hi, > > I'm currently moving all our local school's desktop clients from > Slackware 14.1 to CentOS 7 + Xfce. Right now I'm fine-tuning the default > user profile.This is a big change, so it must be prompted by substantial reason. Would you mind share it: what about slackware was that bad to prompt it. Thanks a lot for your insights! Valeri> > I have a problem with XScreenSaver. The application per se works very > well. Only there's a hard-coded pop-up window that reminds the user that > he's not running the latest version. So, if I'm running version 5.36 as > provided by the EPEL repo and not the latest and greatest 5.38 as > provided upstream, I get a pestering pop-up window informing me that > YOUR VERSION OF XSCREENSAVER IS VERY OLD. This functionality is > apparently hard-coded, since there's no way to deactivating it. > > The Slackware distribution seems to have solved the problem by promising > upstream to keep things up-to-date. > > For the moment I simply work without it, because I'm annoyed by my users > phoning me and asking me what's this thing with their screensaver being > too old. > > As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. > > 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. > > 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. > > 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo. > > Any thoughts about this? > > Cheers, > > Niki > -- > Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables > 7, place de l'??glise - 30730 Montpezat > Site : https://www.microlinux.fr > Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr > Mail : info at microlinux.fr > T??l. : 04 66 63 10 32 > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Valeri Galtsev Sr System Administrator Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics University of Chicago Phone: 773-702-4247 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Le 08/04/2018 ? 16:25, Valeri Galtsev a ?crit :> This is a big change, so it must be prompted by substantial reason. > Would you mind share it: what about slackware was that bad to prompt > it. > > Thanks a lot for your insights!At the time of the change, about a year ago, I've written a short blog text (in english) about the subject. https://blog.microlinux.fr/slackware-centos/ Cheers, Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info at microlinux.fr T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32
Le 08/04/2018 ? 13:54, Nicolas Kovacs a ?crit?:> As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. > > 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. > > 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. > > 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo. > > Any thoughts about this?I just got the following response from Jamie Zawinski, the XScreenSaver developer: "Yes, your distro sucks, and I wish they would stop redistributing my software if they refuse to keep it up to date." He apparently had the same reaction with the Debian guys. Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info at microlinux.fr T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32
On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 1:06 PM Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> wrote:> Le 08/04/2018 ? 13:54, Nicolas Kovacs a ?crit : > > As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. > > > > 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. > > > > 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. > > > > 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo. > > > > Any thoughts about this? > > I just got the following response from Jamie Zawinski, the XScreenSaver > developer: > > "Yes, your distro sucks, and I wish they would stop redistributing my > software if they refuse to keep it up to date." > > He apparently had the same reaction with the Debian guys.Yeah that is pretty classic JWZ... well except he didn?t say something anatomically impossible. I think he may have mellowed a bit. I will see if the EPEL version can be updated. Also to make sure that he doesn?t get the bugs since he doesn?t want them :)> > Niki > > -- > Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables > 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat > Site : https://www.microlinux.fr > Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr > Mail : info at microlinux.fr > T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32 > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-- Stephen J Smoogen.
On 2018-04-08, Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> wrote:> > As far as I can tell, there would be several solutions to this problem. > > 1. Ask the EPEL maintainers to keep the application up-to-date. > > 2. Patch the darn thing so I don't get the annoying popup. > > 3. Maintain my own up-to-date version of XScreenSaver in my private repo.I think you can use the --no-splash switch. https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/man1.html There's probably also a config setting in .xscreensaver. But it was probably worth seeking a patch just to get that classic response. ;-) --keith -- kkeller at wombat.san-francisco.ca.us
Le 09/04/2018 ? 00:33, Keith Keller a ?crit?:> I think you can use the --no-splash switch. > > https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/man1.html > > There's probably also a config setting in .xscreensaver.No, there's no configuration setting. And no way to turn it off. Patrick Volkerding wrote about this some time ago in Slackware's ChangeLog.txt, explaining he decided to upgrade this single piece of software mid-release just to get rid of the nagging warning screen. -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info at microlinux.fr T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32
Le 08/04/2018 ? 14:53, Jonathan Billings a ?crit :> It appears that the spec file actually patches xscreensaver to change > the time bomb date to be the build time, so you?d only need to > rebuild it to make it stop. (The EPEL maintainer could too) > > https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/xscreensaver/blob/epel7/f/xscreensaver.spec#_440 >I just rebuilt XScreenSaver from the EPEL SRPM, and the annoying popup disappeared indeed. I'll just put the resulting packages in my Yum repo, along with a reminder to rebuild them once a year. Thanks! Niki -- Microlinux - Solutions informatiques durables 7, place de l'?glise - 30730 Montpezat Site : https://www.microlinux.fr Blog : https://blog.microlinux.fr Mail : info at microlinux.fr T?l. : 04 66 63 10 32