Re: [gdm-list] [PATCH] 64bit compilation and gnome-screensaver

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Rodrigo:

> >  Really, though, I'd prefer if people could
> > specify the screensaver in the gdm.conf file rather than hardcoding
> > the name of the program in the code.  The configure file could
> > check to see if gnome-screensaver is on the system and set it to
> > that.  If not, then it could check if xscreensaver is on the
> > system and set it to that.  If neither, it could leave it blank.
> > This would be more usable, I think.
>
> the problem with that approach is that you might have xscreensaver only
> installed in the system at configure time, then install
> gnome-screensaver, and not be able to use it unless you recompile.

Why would recompilation be necessary?  If the location of the screensaver
is specified in the gdm.conf file, then it would only be necessary to
modify the gdm.conf file if you want to use a different screensaver
even if you have installed a GDM binary on another machine.  Or am I
missing something?

> Not sure if that's a big problem, but since all other gnome modules that
> use the screensaver do it this way, I thought this would be ok for gdm
> also.

GDM is also used by users who do not use GNOME, such as KDE users, so
the ability to specify alternative screensavers would be handy, I'd
think.  It's a bit of a pain to have to modify the source code each
time some person wants to use a different screensaver.

Brian