When I follwed the Desktop Config guide, I ended with a gnome desktop that upon starting immediately popped up warnings about failing to load xscreensaver and mixer. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual Results: Warning popups that puzzle new users. Expected Results: An error-free start of a gnome desktop
Created attachment 16462 [details, diff] Just adding `emerge xscreensaver` after `emerge gnome` How does this look?
It would be nice if a user could choose whether to install or not, but this fix has the advantages of being direct and short. BTW, there's a similar problem with mixer.
If you mean GNOME whining that it can't find /dev/mixer, that's because you don't have a working soundcard. Please elaborate on the mixer issue.
i wonder if it would be wise to have xscreensaver in the gnome meta ebuild, or alternatively, fix whatever it is in gnome-session that tries to find xscreensaver
well the gnome meta ebuild does pull in quite a lot of stuff that i guess could be considered 'extra', and it's definition is "A wrapper for the complete Gnome2 desktop".
Patch looks good to me. It's short and ppl emerging gnome are not people that want to specify every ebuild they want (since gnome installs dozens of other ebuilds). Reviewed.
people installing gnome-meta are people getting the full desktop as specified by the gnome.org team. xscreensaver is not officially part of that. We know the messages pop-up, but it's a first timer only. We've had over time maybe 1 or 2 bugs on this, I personally don't think it's a big deal. The patch seem sufficient. What is the difference between <c> and <i> ?
shouldnt it be <i> for the patch added line? As for making gnome depend on xscreensaver that a generally unpleasant thing as it adds several deeper dependencies which are possible with xscreensaver and may not be desired. The Xscreensaver dialog is as foser said just a reminder that it didnt find xscreenaver installed, and therefore has not enabled a screensaver. (for systems who don't want a screensaver but just want powersaving, fex.) The /dev/mixer issue is different, since it comes from the gnome mixer applet on systems that don't have support for the mixer device (no soundcard configured or working). As such, assuming a desktop has a soundcard may be a bit of a folly, but for homeusers its generally the norm. Perhaps this could be made to silently fail instead, but this would be an inconvenience to users who don't realize why the sound of their desktop doesn't work.
It's indeed <i> instead of <c>, missed that.
Would something like this be acceptable to cope with mixer message? <span class="chapnum"><a name="doc_chap5">5. </a></span>Sound Configuration</p> <p class="secthead"><a name="doc_chap5_sect1">Alsa </a></p> <p>To install ALSA, please refer to the Gentoo Linux ALSA setup guide<a href="http://www.gentoo.org/doc/alsa-guide.html">here</a> </p> <p>We recommend that beginners install ALSA. If you do not install ALSA (or an another sound driver), when you start a gnome desktop, you may see an error message saying that "mixer" is missing.</p>
i personally think adding little stuff like that is beyond the scope of this manual (already have that a little with the xscreensaver stuff) Joe just emerged gnome.. now let's see it.. uh 2 messages pop-up.. whatever.. click, click, done. He never sees them again, if you ask him later on he probably won't even remember they were there. Thats just how i see it.
Perhaps we should ask the gnome team how they feel about this. Should xscreensaver be a dependency of gnome so that the error disappears (I believe a screensaver is part of a desktop), or not? The mixer stuff is less relevant, if your sound works, then the mixer error disappears (at least it didn't occur here on my systems, both OSS and ALSA).
Sorry, didn't know you guys were the gnome-team :) So a consensus would be to just have the guide add the "emerge xscreensaver". Not doing it gives us an error to which apparently users report bugs :) Zack, can you update your patch with <i>'s instead of <c>'s? Then you can commit.
Committed.
