xscreensaver troubles

Edward Glowacki glowack2@msu.edu
Tue, 14 Aug 2001 17:52:24 -0400


Quoted from Ben Pfaff on Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 05:40:05PM -0400:
> Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu> writes:
> 
> > I was having trouble with Xscreensaver taking over a minute to
> > unlock my screen after putting in the password.  I emailed JWZ
> > about it with what little info I had.  He suggested some stuff, I
> > fixed the problem, and started to reply back.  Well, I got a bit
> > sidetracked... ;)  Anyways, I hope you find it funny and not one
> > of those "you really had to be there to understand the joke" things.
> 
> Wow, you really emailed Jamie Zawinski?  I wouldn't do that
> unless I'd personally tried every other path.  Remember, this is
> the guy who wrote Netscape---he can have you killed.  I'd as soon
> drop Linus Torvalds an email because I was having trouble booting
> Linux, or Richard Stallman because GCC miscompiled something.
> 
> On second thought, I *have* had email conversations with Richard
> Stallman, and Alan Cox for that matter.
> 
> :-)

This isn't the first time I've emailed him though... ;)  I sent
him a question a while back about getting ElectroPaint (the kick-ass
SGI screensaver) added to Xscreensaver.  He agreed that EP rocked
and that xscreensaver would rock with it, but he hadn't gotten
anywhere with SGI.  I tried contacting SGI about it too, but it
basically isn't worth SGI's time to make sure that EP doesn't
contain any code they can't release due to licensing issues, they'd
rather spend their time with XFS and the other more important
contribs to the OSS world.  Anyways, I dunno if he remembers the
conversation, but it's something anyways... ;)  And yes, I'm familiar
with his style, I've read most of the rants on his home page... =)
The problem with xscreensaver could have been a weird interaction
between it and XFree86 4.1.0, or FreeBSD, or whatever, so it's
something worth contacting a software author about (after checking
the FAQ of course!).  Turns out I was able to solve the problem,
and in replying to him hopefully supply a laugh or two to the
infamous JWZ. ;)

-- 
Edward Glowacki			glowack2@msu.edu
Michigan State University	
"...a partial solution to the right problem is better than a complete
solution to the wrong one." (http://uiweb.com/issues/issue14.htm)