(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I wish I was knowledgeable enough to make it myself, but I'm not lol. I've tried everything I could find here, but I can never make it work.

A screensaver that gives a slideshow of the user's own pictures is simply ideal for customization, and what is Puppy if not customizable to the user's taste?

I'd like it to be in pet form and compatible with all the variations of Puppy so that it doesn't matter if someone is using a Slackware puplet or Debian. It probably needs to be 32 and 64 bit, two pets, but I know most of the 64 bit puppies can run 32 bit software so I guess the 32 bit is more important, or in a script where it wouldn't matter.

I think this would be ideal to incorporate into the base of Puppy so that it is built in.

There have been quite a few threads trying to get this type of thing to work, most of them trying to use xscreensaver in conjunction with glslideshow, and it seems there are always problems, such as getting demo to cooperate with the user root/nobody error and gl permissions error. I got it working briefly once on an old version of lighthouse, then it errored out.

It seems ideal for Puppy's character to have this kind of screensaver working. There could be an option to pull from two directories, one the default with normal puppy backgrounds, and the other the user's picture directory.

In addition to xscreensaver/glslideshow, I've also tried to play with slidesaver and slock, but I haven't been able to get those working either. I don't know why this is turning out to be so difficult. It seems like it should be simple, but I can't seem to make it work.

Does anyone else think this would be a good deal to have working for all Puppies? It just seems like an obvious benefit to me because it will make puppy even more friendly to the user.

Hope someone likes this idea. I would love to see it working. I'll help any way I can... maybe testing? I have a bunch of Puppies on a bunch of computers to try out anyone's efforts.

After an exhaustive amount of work, trial and error... I managed to get a slideshow screensaver working... mostly. The one I'm using is 'puppybasic-screensaver.' I believe it is by Mu and I believe it is his third version. I have it mostly working on a version of 412 barebones retro that I have been fiddling with, installed on an aging WinbookJ1 with a 1 gig Coppermine. It's a messy install so I'd like to clean it up a lot.

I'm down with a back injury, but when I feel more like myself I'll post a more detailed description of how I finally got the thing working.

Also, I'd like to ask for help with one small detail, making the mouse pointer disappear when the screensaver activates. Everything else seems to be working.

Thanks

Maybe this link could be of some help:

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=37561

It's a script by Bruce B which will randomly change your wallpaper. I suppose the thing that would be needed to change it into a screensaver, is another script that tells it to activate after a certain amount of inactivity, and deactivate when activity is detected.

But I do not have the knowledge to create those.

Apologies for taking a while to come back to this. With my back injury, I don't feel comfortable sitting at my desk very long. Getting a little better though.

I can't say if this proceedure will work for eveyone's puppy, but it works in this one, a version of Puppy-4.2-DeepThought with an SMP kernel created a while ago by (I believe) Aragon. It's always been one of my favorite pups.

The following packages are needed:

gqview.pet
PuppyScreensaver.pet
SDL-1.2.13-1386.pet
SLD_image-1.2.6-i386.pet
SDL_mixer-1.2.8-i386-mod-smpeg.pet

My proceedure:

Preliminary:
Erase or move any of the default backgrounds you don't want to use from the path /usr/share/backgrounds. Collect all the photos you want to use for your slideshow and save them into the path /user/share/backgrounds.

1. install gqview.
2. Install puppyscreensaver.
3. Install SDL-1.2.13-i386.
4. Install SDL_image-1.2.6-i386.
5. SDL_mixer-1.2.8-i386-mod-smpeg.
6. Reboot the system (restarting the X-server was not sufficient for me).
7. Open menu/graphic/gqview image viewer and go to edit/preferences, then go to image. Check 'fit image to window.' Click 'apply' then 'okay' at the bottom.
8. Open menu/desktop/puppy screensaver setup. Select 'choose module' and click 'okay.' Select 'slideshow' and click 'okay.' Select 'set interval' and click 'okay.' Input the number of inactivity minutes you desire before the screensaver activates the slideshow (I use 3) and click 'okay.' Select 'start saver' and click 'okay.' Click 'cancel' to close the dialogue window.

The slideshow screensaver is now active and will launch after your desired interval passes. It will also launch on new boot automatically by a call from /root/startup/run-PB-screensaver, which is a symlink. To escape the slideshow, simply hit the escape key (Esc) on your keyboard.

I don't remember everyone who contributed to these packages and proceedures because I must have read twenty threads to get this going. I believe the main work was done by Mu, so thank you. Thanks to whoever else was involved and feel free to claim credit since my memory isn't what it used to be.

Two things:
1. Could someone help with code or a package that will make the mouse pointer/curser disappear when the slideshow activates?
2. Could someone help with code or a package that will cause to escape the slideshow with 'any activity' rather than the escape key?

Perhaps Mu could do one last update and include these two good features, which would really make this screensaver complete and perfect. Can anyone help him?

I think this screensaver is absolutely perfect for puppy customization, and I wish it would get incorporated into every puppy as standard equipment. It's just plain wonderful.

eathray

Has anyone been able to reproduce my results?

thanks

I received a message from a member having trouble finding some of the packages. They are scattered around. I will look for a place to upload the packages so you can find them in a convenient place. Give me a day or two and I will post back.

Not really too excited about the file sharing options out there, but here's links to the packages on 4shared:

http://www.4shared.com/file/XDOer7Hcba/ ... saver.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/cvTRMK7xba/gqview-204.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/MNrA3uhCba/ ... -i386.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/LrfUqsCYba/ ... -i386.html

http://www.4shared.com/file/mR36PEV4ce/ ... smpeg.html

Obviously I'm only putting these here for the convenience of readers of this thread. I don't claim any credit for the creation of these packages. Smarter people than me did the work, and thanks to them.