This is the Linux version of the screensaver made from the winning selections in the corporate photo contest.
From the technical point of view, it is an interesting example of how a Linux screensaver can be packaged out of a Macromedia
Flash .swf file, despite the issues with the last (now unsupported) standalone player released for Linux (-window-id mode broken in now three-years-old version 6). Ahh, the magic a bit of shell scripting can work.... :)
Note that this is a hack, it might be a clever hack, but it is still a hack, so if it does not work on your system and you followed the setup instructions, I would like to know about it.
Federico Lucifredi - flucifredi@novell.com
| 1.1 | (installer 0.7) | 2005-09-14 |
| 1.0 | (installer 0.6a) | 2005-08-24 |
The installer requires a live connection to the Internet, and a current Novell Linux distribution (NLD 9, SuSE 9.3, SLES 9 or newer). Effectively, you can install this on any Linux system whatsoever that is not POSIX-broken and is running xscreensaver - and if I decide to be masochistic, I will look into the KDE and Gnome screensaver wrappers.
You do not need root password or administrator permissions to do this, as the installer does not alter any secure area of the system. once you have changed the permissions, you can double-click on the file to start the install process.
In order to install the screensaver into your system, you will need to download it to a known location, in this case the Desktop. Once the download is complete, you will need to set the proper permissions on said file. You can do this by right-clicking on the file, selecting Properties, then the Permissions tab, and then checking the Read and Execute checkboxes for the Owner (that's you) of the file. once you have done this, you can double-click on the icon and wait for the install to download. This is done silently and you have to wait for it to complete, so refrain from double-clicking again, as this will take from a few seconds to a few minutes depending on your network connection. After the download is complete, you will be prompted with the screeensaver configuration panel of your system to enable you to select your preferences. If instead the double clicking brought up a window reading "There is no action associated with install", press cancel and go back to step one (you though you could skip it, eh?).
In alternative, you can open a terminal (Programs | System tools | Terminal in NLD 9), and type the following, without altering case or spacing:
cd ~/Desktop
chmod 500 install
./install
If you opt to proceed this way, you will have greater feedback as the installation progresses, as you will be informed of download percentages and similar technical details, but the end result will be exactly the same: you will be prompted by a graphical configuration window to set up your Novell Values screensaver.
Enjoy!
The installer creates a .screensaver directory in your $HOME folder, and it modifies the .xscreensaver file (also in $HOME). If you feel so inclined, you can safely delete both. If you do use a screensaver, you can regenerate your preferences by running xscreensaver-command -prefs. Yes, I know phosphor is hard to beat...
created 2005-08-24 - last modified 2005-08-24 - http://primates.ximian.com/~flucifredi/