old version of xscreensaver

[pixel fairy]

xscreensaver complains about being an old version. doubt this matters, but might scare some users.

[seshu]

On Wednesday, January 2, 2019 at 9:42:47 PM UTC-7, pixel fairy wrote:
> xscreensaver complains about being an old version. doubt this matters, but might scare some users.

I just started noticing the message also.

[Andrew David Wong]

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Yes, this is a known issue:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/3652

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org

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[Achim Patzner]

Am Mittwoch, den 02.01.2019, 20:42 -0800 schrieb pixel fairy:
> xscreensaver complains about being an old version. doubt this matters, but might scare some users.

There are worse problems with it (and some of them depend on X and the
hardware you're running on) which might also warrant finding something
different. I just have to find some time for constant rebooting of my
system to create a meaningful bug report.

(To give you an idea: Imagine a machine (let's call it Lenovo P52) with
multiple GPUs where certain output channels are connected to one of the
GPUs only starting a screen server. If you connect your second monitor
to the right port the screen saver will not blank one of them if you
start X without an appropriately xorg.conf... And to make things worse
it also depends on the GPU you are using and the phase of the moon.)


Achim

[Chris Laprise]

The bad screensaver is one of the reasons I switched back to KDE, and
why I recommend it to other Qubes users. The default environment doesn't
rise to the level of an every day functional desktop.

--

Chris Laprise, tas...@posteo.net
https://github.com/tasket
https://twitter.com/ttaskett
PGP: BEE2 20C5 356E 764A 73EB 4AB3 1DC4 D106 F07F 1886

[Frédéric Pierret]

We built the upstream package of xscreensaver in current-testing for
both Qubes 3.2 and 4.0.

Welcome back to XFCE Chris :D !

[Chris Laprise]

On 01/03/2019 06:03 PM, Frédéric Pierret wrote:
> We built the upstream package of xscreensaver in current-testing for
> both Qubes 3.2 and 4.0.
>
> Welcome back to XFCE Chris :D !

LOL, seriously?

The XFCE deficits are too numerous, unfortunately.

[unman]

Is this a thing now? Is Qubes going to provide updated packages for any
other software?

[Foppe de Haan]

nah, just xscreensaver because it's essential to the Qubes UX. ;)

[Frédéric Pierret]

Absolutely not. It is just because it is annoying, at least, under XFCE.

[haaber]

> On 01/03/2019 06:03 PM, Frédéric Pierret wrote:
>> We built the upstream package of xscreensaver in current-testing for
>> both Qubes 3.2 and 4.0.
>>
>> Welcome back to XFCE Chris :D !
>
> LOL, seriously?
>
> The XFCE deficits are too numerous, unfortunately.
>

Dear Chris, for less advanced users it might be helpful to have a
non-dogmatic discussion on advantages and disadvantages of both sides. I
guess that XFCE has speed on its side, for example. Visual aspects seems
on the KDE side (at least for me). I invite you to give us a deeper
comparison... best, Bernhard

[David Hobach]

On 1/4/19 9:24 AM, Frédéric Pierret wrote:
>
> On 1/4/19 1:51 AM, unman wrote:
>> On Fri, Jan 04, 2019 at 12:03:49AM +0100, Frédéric Pierret wrote:
>>> We built the upstream package of xscreensaver in current-testing for
>>> both Qubes 3.2 and 4.0.
>>>
>>> Welcome back to XFCE Chris :D !
>>>
>>> On 1/3/19 11:56 PM, Chris Laprise wrote:
>>>> On 01/03/2019 02:00 PM, Achim Patzner wrote:
>>>>> Am Mittwoch, den 02.01.2019, 20:42 -0800 schrieb pixel fairy:
>>>>>> xscreensaver complains about being an old version. doubt this
>>>>>> matters, but might scare some users.
>>>>> There are worse problems with it (and some of them depend on X and the
>>>>> hardware you're running on) which might also warrant finding something
>>>>> different. I just have to find some time for constant rebooting of my
>>>>> system to create a meaningful bug report.
>>>>>
>>>>> (To give you an idea: Imagine a machine (let's call it Lenovo P52) with
>>>>> multiple GPUs where certain output channels are connected to one of the
>>>>> GPUs only starting a screen server. If you connect your second monitor
>>>>> to the right port the screen saver will not blank one of them if you
>>>>> start X without an appropriately xorg.conf... And to make things worse
>>>>> it also depends on the GPU you are using and the phase of the moon.)
>>>> The bad screensaver is one of the reasons I switched back to KDE, and
>>>> why I recommend it to other Qubes users. The default environment
>>>> doesn't rise to the level of an every day functional desktop.

I fully agree - xscreensaver has lots of issues. Many of the
screensavers do though. E.g. most won't survive an X server crash due to
e.g. OOM killer, but your X server will probably be restarted
automatically and leave your screen unprotected...

In total it's not wise to trust one's screensaver for anything sincere.

[Achim Patzner]

On 20190103 at 19:29 -0500 Chris Laprise wrote:

The XFCE deficits are too numerous, unfortunately.

It's just the worst UI since OSF/Motif (which made me go to plain X11/twm).

Achim

[Stuart Perkins]

GUI of choice is a very personal thing. I am more pragmatic and don't like "dancing" icons and starting all of my application names with K...or G for that matter...but to each his own. I am "slightly" impaired visually, and the simpler and more clean a GUI, the better for me. I have to spend many hours in front of a screen each day.

There is a tad more manual effort to get XFCE 'just right', but I like the visually simple appearance and would rather devote my computing power to function than what I consider fluff. Now historically I have used older, less powerful machinery. In fact, my Qubes machine is having motherboard issues with the power management circuitry and won't boot reliably so I'm actually using an old Dell D620 32 bit machine for now...which used to be my wife's Windows 7 computer. The screen is a tad flaky which is why she quit using it, but it is at least functional and boots when I ask. I have a replacement motherboard on the way and will be doing the surgery on my T520 once I get it. I'm not really a hardware guy, so it will be a learning experience to be sure. Even with the additional power of a 2.5Ghz four core processor, I still prefer to save the power for actual work.

Stuart

[Lorenzo Lamas]

I have tried KDE shortly on R4 now, here are some of my pro's and cons:

XFCE:
Pros
-Fast and light.
-I have my standard panel on the bottom and created a second, auto-hiding, panel on the top filled with Launchers to get something like a MacOS Dock.(But way less fancy.)
Cons:
-Not visually appealing.
-Default Window Manager theme (Slick) is very ugly, and also the some of the colors from the collored borders get very ugly. I thought R3.2 used a different fault. I've set mine to Nodoka.
-I've set appearance to Greybird, the panel looks a lot better now but Application Launcher does not match.
-Xscreensaver lockscreen is way too ugly.

KDE:
Pros
-Loads more visually appealing.
-Much nicer lockscreen.
Cons
-After logging in after booting it needs quite some time to load while XFCE loads almost instantly.
-Sys-Net network icon is invisible
-Other icons are very out of focus compared to XFCE and some are uglier as well.
-Not sure if there is an alternative to my XFCE 'Dock' that doesn't require installing additional software/extensions into Dom0.

[Chris Laprise]

An impromptu list of KDE advantages:

* Monitor power-save mode always works - this always fails in XFCE.

* Multi-monitor configurations are remembered correctly - XFCE forgets
them. Very useful if you want laptop's internal screen to turn off when
connecting external display. But this is important for any config
involving multiple displays.

* Auto-login at boot time works.

* Focus-stealing prevention works better (not perfect - but XFCE's
doesn't work at all).

* Screen saver allows you to stop the screen lock a few seconds later by
just tapping a key. OTOH the xscreensaver is totally unforgiving -
requires a lot of repeated password typing.

* Custom Qubes border colors; the defaults are far too bright for
dark/low light themes.

* Fine-grained control of audio volume - XFCE's volume stepping is
annoyingly inaccurate.

* Very nice Redshift control widget.

* Much better accessory apps: Text editor, terminal, etc. This matters
even for dom0.

-

Notice I didn't touch on anything that would be considered advanced.
Also notice the stuff that works in KDE but is broken in XFCE... the
fact that XFCE developers let these obvious bugs sit for years is a
cause for general concern.

I use the more advanced KDE features, too:

* Controlling which VMs appear on which desktops

* Hotkey functions

* Color correction profiles.

(KDE also works better inside appVMs, at least in the sense that its
apps will always start when requested.)

On the downside, this version of KDE takes about 5sec longer to start up
- which the auto-login more than makes up for. And the Network Manager
icon is blank, even though it works. I'm happy to take that trade-off.

[Sven Semmler]

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On 1/4/19 9:08 AM, Stuart Perkins wrote:
> GUI of choice is a very personal thing. I am more pragmatic and
> don't like "dancing" icons and starting all of my application
> names with K...or G for that matter...but to each his own. I am
> "slightly" impaired visually, and the simpler and more clean a GUI,
> the better for me. I have to spend many hours in front of a screen
> each day.

Just for completeness: Qubes does support i3. It certainly is an
acquired taste, but for some (like me) it's the very best solution out
there. It is for sure "simple & clean".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx0eNaGzAZU

/Sven
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