Screensaver Linux

[sickgut]

I am going to collect as many screen savers for Linux that i possibly can.
Then i will add them to a live cdrom / usb distro that has as the best video driver setup autodetection that i can create so that fancy screen savers that need OpenGL will run well in most cases.

The OS will do nothing other than load into X and start random screen savers in a loop. While i will collect as many screen savers that i can and include them in the OS, by default only the more artistic or wow factor or humorous ones will be looped on boot. The user will be able to interrupt whatever screen save is running and add others to the loop/ random selection and or browse individual screen savers and execute them.
There will be a remastering option that will let you add your own photos or image files to the OS so that the screen savers that use these as part of their effects will use your custom pics.

Linux has had the best screen savers for years. There are more screens in peoples homes then ever before and there are digital picture frames being sold on ebay etc, this OS could be used in the same way.

I would like this OS to be a tool that screen saver creators can use for inspiration and so they can look under the hood and see how it all works, while being a comprehensive repository for linux screen savers so they are not lost to the ravages of time. With ACPI power efficiency switching off monitors as default these days rather than running a screen saver, there is less and less awareness about the actual sweetness of linux screen savers.

Eventually i would like to gather as many screen saver creating tools as i can and include them in the OS.

Screen savers have been saving your screens. Now its time to save screen savers.

While i have not started this yet, it will happen and ill post again when i start work incase anyone wants to submit any screen savers they may have collected or have laying around. I have started installing screen savers for my Pussy Linux on DVD and i realized that i would like to dedicate an OS to screen savers.

[8-bit]

I currently have no screensavers installed.
After a period of idle time, the screen just goes blank.
When trying to watch a movie, this is a problem as the screen goes blank and one has to move the mouse pointer or press a key to have the movie display again.
I remember having a utility called no blank screen that would overcome this.
But I often forget to reactivate screen blanking.
So my question is would a screen saver interfere with watching a movie by it starting while a movie was watched with screen blanking disabled.
An addition to mplayer that would disable screen blanking or a screen saver and re-enable screen blanking or the screen saver upon exiting mplayer would be good.
But does such a thing exist?

[sickgut]

I currently have no screensavers installed.
After a period of idle time, the screen just goes blank.
When trying to watch a movie, this is a problem as the screen goes blank and one has to move the mouse pointer or press a key to have the movie display again.
I remember having a utility called no blank screen that would overcome this.
But I often forget to reactivate screen blanking.
So my question is would a screen saver interfere with watching a movie by it starting while a movie was watched with screen blanking disabled.
An addition to mplayer that would disable screen blanking or a screen saver and re-enable screen blanking or the screen saver upon exiting mplayer would be good.
But does such a thing exist?

the OS im proposing wont play vids at all just run screen savers....

i had this same problem, till i found a setting in Mplayer's Preferences that let Mplayer stop ACPI and or screen saver from cutting in while a vid is playing

[linuxbear]

I currently have no screensavers installed.
After a period of idle time, the screen just goes blank.
When trying to watch a movie, this is a problem as the screen goes blank and one has to move the mouse pointer or press a key to have the movie display again.
I remember having a utility called no blank screen that would overcome this.
But I often forget to reactivate screen blanking.
So my question is would a screen saver interfere with watching a movie by it starting while a movie was watched with screen blanking disabled.
An addition to mplayer that would disable screen blanking or a screen saver and re-enable screen blanking or the screen saver upon exiting mplayer would be good.
But does such a thing exist?

If you put a clock under an LED mouse, the second hand will pass under the mouse once every 60 seconds and keep your screen from going black.
.... just kidding, but it would probably work

[starhawk]

Only if the clock face is covered with a nonreflective yet transparent substance and even then it's still a "maybe".

Funny idea tho!

[8-bit]

Where are those mplayer preferences located so I can change the setting?
A little help is appreciated.

I found a man page on the net for mplayer with options.
I tried to add "-stop_screensaver" to the blank configuration file.
When I then did a "mplayer --help" in a terminal, I got back a message that the line I had added, -stop_screensaver, was missing a parameter.
I do not know what parameter to give it for the linux screen blanker though.
So again, I have to ask what your configuration file in /root/.mplayer/config contains.
Again, I would like to know as others may also like to know.

[sickgut]

Where are those mplayer preferences located so I can change the setting?
A little help is appreciated.

I found a man page on the net for mplayer with options.
I tried to add "-stop_screensaver" to the blank configuration file.
When I then did a "mplayer --help" in a terminal, I got back a message that the line I had added, -stop_screensaver, was missing a parameter.
I do not know what parameter to give it for the linux screen blanker though.
So again, I have to ask what your configuration file in /root/.mplayer/config contains.
Again, I would like to know as others may also like to know.

hmmmm i did this once but for the life of me i cant find how i did it

[rokytnji]

For the mplayer blank screen problem. Maybe this thread will help,or not.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ng-701384/

For the windows/suse dude. Have you looked through the over 200 screensavers that xscreensaver offers?



http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/screenshots/

Bubble3D

Draws a stream of rising, undulating 3D bubbles, rising toward the top of the screen, with transparency and specular reflections.

Written by Richard Jones; 1998.

[sickgut]

For the mplayer blank screen problem. Maybe this thread will help,or not.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ng-701384/

For the windows/suse dude. Have you looked through the over 200 screensavers that xscreensaver offers?



http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/screenshots/

Bubble3D

Draws a stream of rising, undulating 3D bubbles, rising toward the top of the screen, with transparency and specular reflections.

Written by Richard Jones; 1998.

Thanks for posting that URL it was a great help to me, let alone the guy who you was posting it for

[Haut_Dawg]

I'm using Aqualung as my music playback. When I was using Windoze and smoking 'erb in my younger days, I used to love staring at the visualizer in winamp. Is there a visualization plugin for Aqualung? I don't smoke the 'erb anymore, but I miss the visualizers. I tried to xlock my screen and let the music play but it stops after playing one song. I'm using the spiral mode, if that makes any difference.

[gcmartin]

Hi @Sickgut. This is an interesting idea you propose.

Further, the movie issue that is presented also bring an idea to the forefront.

As many of us came from Windows, there are tools for accomplishing this along with the facilities in Windows that allows easy manipulation of the system's peripheral to control power usage and peripheral activity.

What is appearing here is a desire to take the PC into low-power mode and using low-power, use its display capability to present video content to the passer-by. Is that right?

If so, is there a desktop approach that can be used instead of the screen-saver approach? Let's assume for a moment, that the screen-saver is a subsystem that is activated based upon some triggers. Could the screen saver have a trigger that checks for some application that may be currently running "on the screen"? And, if so, continue to allow the system to go to low-power mode, but, not interrupt the currently running display?

Is that all that is needed to address both ideas that come out here? Is this simple? Is this overlooked?

For the music lovers in us, doesn't XINE provide visualization when playing music that appears far-reaching and deep-thought provoking? This visualization is done in the absence/presence of the song's Album covers, can this be a selectable item?

Here to help

[ally]

fantastic idea but unfortunately do not have any I can contribute but look forward to seeing it in action

[sickgut]

Hi @Sickgut. This is an interesting idea you propose.

Further, the movie issue that is presented also bring an idea to the forefront.

As many of us came from Windows, there are tools for accomplishing this along with the facilities in Windows that allows easy manipulation of the system's peripheral to control power usage and peripheral activity.

What is appearing here is a desire to take the PC into low-power mode and using low-power, use its display capability to present video content to the passer-by. Is that right?

If so, is there a desktop approach that can be used instead of the screen-saver approach? Let's assume for a moment, that the screen-saver is a subsystem that is activated based upon some triggers. Could the screen saver have a trigger that checks for some application that may be currently running "on the screen"? And, if so, continue to allow the system to go to low-power mode, but, not interrupt the currently running display?

Is that all that is needed to address both ideas that come out here? Is this simple? Is this overlooked?

For the music lovers in us, doesn't XINE provide visualization when playing music that appears far-reaching and deep-thought provoking? This visualization is done in the absence/presence of the song's Album covers, can this be a selectable item?

Here to help

The idea is to make something that only displays screen savers, then possibly in the future add to it a development addon for creating screen savers, the 2nd bit will mean that it needs to be a more complete OS. My idea for the first version of screen saver linux is to only have screen savers running and nothing else, so it doesnt matter what kind of application detection is happening as there will be no other apps. Not really planning on having media players etc linked to graphic representations of the sound as kind of a screen saver in the first version but i am not saying it willnever happen, just not the first version that will be bare as possible and have no abilities other than display screen savers. I dont know about actual power saving things here, this is something that i will have to deal with when i start to get my hands dirty making the OS, whatever is practical at the time will be the best thing, but right now, i dont have enough information handy to know what kind of power management system i will use and how it will work.

i dont know if xorg with openGL or just the xvesa X-server will be chosen, or if there will be an option to choose between the two

when i conceived this idea, i must admit i had low power devices in mind, like the original 7" EeePC series of netbooks etc, maybe this is not very practical on a power hungery desktop system, and yes you make a very valid point bringing up power management and low power usage. Even using its maximum power, no one cares how much power a netbook uses because its so little, but a desktop running at its max can be 200W including monitor (large LCD monitor maybe alot more, and a plasma screen is so much more its not worth computing), that kind of power drain is half as much as running a small heater or 5 or 6 or 7 low power light globes (basically enough power to light up a whole house) and it has got to impact your power bill and therefore not be practical.

thankyou for bringing up this point and i will implement some kind of power management strategy, i just dont know what particular one until i actually make the OS and screen saver bundle.

thanks for your input, it has change the course of the history of something that hasnt even happened yet

[sickgut]

The Raspberry Pi would be an ideal platform for this project, but if that happens then dont worry, it will be released for normal computers as well.

[sickgut]

Hi @Sickgut. This is an interesting idea you propose.

Further, the movie issue that is presented also bring an idea to the forefront.

As many of us came from Windows, there are tools for accomplishing this along with the facilities in Windows that allows easy manipulation of the system's peripheral to control power usage and peripheral activity.

What is appearing here is a desire to take the PC into low-power mode and using low-power, use its display capability to present video content to the passer-by. Is that right?

If so, is there a desktop approach that can be used instead of the screen-saver approach? Let's assume for a moment, that the screen-saver is a subsystem that is activated based upon some triggers. Could the screen saver have a trigger that checks for some application that may be currently running "on the screen"? And, if so, continue to allow the system to go to low-power mode, but, not interrupt the currently running display?

Is that all that is needed to address both ideas that come out here? Is this simple? Is this overlooked?

For the music lovers in us, doesn't XINE provide visualization when playing music that appears far-reaching and deep-thought provoking? This visualization is done in the absence/presence of the song's Album covers, can this be a selectable item?

Here to help

another thought occurs: this would probably work very well in a virtual box or virtual machine running on windows or linux or mac, so this would take advantage of the host OSes power management system