Hello Jamie, I'm going to check these tonight at home. ;-) I don't like neither the extra split but too much users were complaining.
Regards -----Original Message----- From: Jamie Zawinski <j...@jwz.org> Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:25:52 To: <sub...@bugs.debian.org> Reply-To: Jamie Zawinski <j...@jwz.org>, 596...@bugs.debian.org Subject: Bug#596944: please reconsider xscreensaver *-extra package split Package: xscreensaver Version: 5.05-3 In summary: The Debian package of xscreensaver currently excludes many savers from the default install, on the basis of them using too much CPU. This is no longer the case. As those savers no longer use too much CPU, the justification for excluding them from the default install no longer exists, and they should be installed by default. Longer version: Currently, Debian divides xscreensaver into five packages: xscreensaver (base) xscreensaver-data (non-OpenGL screen savers, part 1) xscreensaver-data-extra (non-OpenGL screen savers, part 2) xscreensaver-gl (OpenGL screen savers, part 1) xscreensaver-gl-extra (OpenGL screen savers, part 2) The choice of which savers to put in the "part 2" packages instead of the "part 1" packages was made by Jose Luis Rivas Contreras <ghostba...@gmail.com> and Tormod Volden <debian.tor...@gmail.com> back in 2007 or 2008 by running each of the screen savers and timing their CPU usage, and putting those with high CPU usage in the "part 2" packages, not installed by default. I believe these are the tests they ran, years ago: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Screensavers It has always been my goal with xscreensaver that *no* screen saver should use significant CPU when running. Since he ran his tests, I have fixed those savers that were using too much CPU (mostly by adjusting their default settings to be gentler). It is my belief that currently, none of the screen savers included with xscreensaver use significant CPU when running with their default options. Therefore, it is my belief that the -extra packages are unnecessary, and their contents should be folded in to the -data and -gl packages, reducing the number of xscreensaver packages from 5 to 3. I would like this to happen so that the default is to install the *complete* xscreensaver package instead of just an arbitrary subset of it. Since most users will just take the defaults, they won't even know that the "part 2" savers exist, and many of them are pretty cool! And the justification for excluding them no longer exists. Over the past 3 years, I have repeatedly asked Jose to re-run the tests he ran by which he decided which savers to push into the "extras" package, and let me know if he still sees any savers using excessive CPU (because I don't believe there are any, but if there are, I would like to fix that bug.) I'm sorry to say that he has never responded. In fact, I haven't gotten any mail from him at all since September 2008, so even though he is still listed as the Debian maintainer of xscreensaver, I'm not sure he is still paying attention. So -- if there is anyone reading this who considers themselves to be in charge of the Debian xscreensaver package, please reconsider the split between the "default" and "extras" packages, because I believe it to be based on old data and on assumptions which are no longer true. Thanks...
