5 ms·

Huh. Ran into this behavior yesterday, coincidentally. I also think there's another bug with xscreensaver where it will capture and "hang on" to your keyboard

Huh. Ran into this behavior yesterday, coincidentally. I also think there's another bug with xscreensaver where it will capture and "hang on" to your keyboard after you've unlocked the machine. Maybe it's time to switch...

tinco 11y ago
... to another distro that actually ships up to date software?
- castratikron 11y ago
  Not a chance! Debian is the only sane Linux distro. Xubuntu would by alright if they ever decide to switch to systemd.
  - tinco 11y ago
    Fair enough, I only use insane distros. I quit Debian because I wanted to dev in Ruby and it wouldn't let me. Then I used Archlinux for a while, but having to use rescue mode everytime I did 'pacman -Syu' got a little old so I switched to a sane OS for a while. Seriously, aren't both Ubuntu and CentOS not much saner than Debian? Anyway, my sane period ended a while ago, it's full on NixOS now, why are people still using OS'es that are not the future?.
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      Keep in mind that Ubuntu and offshots are based on Debian Unstable, not Stable. And the problem that the bugreport is about is that Stable would not get bugfix updates, resulting in JWZ getting emails for long fixed bugs. Thus he put in the "obsolete version" warning to get Stable users to pester Debian maintainers.
    - ferrari8608 11y ago
      Having to rescue your system after every upgrade is either an exaggeration or you do weird things with your system. If the latter, quit that. I had my Arch system running for over a year, upgraded at least once a week. Only once did I need the rescue disk, and that was my own fault (some um... "clever" pacman command I dreamed up ended up uninstalling some pretty important things like all of base).
      - tinco 11y ago
        It's a joke about how Archlinux works. If you do a "pacman -Syu" without reading the changelogs there is a good chance your system won't boot. You just can't be negligent. They might change the location of libc, they might switch to systemd, they change whatever they need to to be the coolest operating system on the block, and that's why I love them. But if you weren't hip to it, your system won't boot.
        ferrari8608 11y ago
        Arch isn't a distro for people who take issue to reading up on what they're actually doing to their system with upgrades, package installations, and configuration. That's why they have one of the most amazing wikis around. It's expected that you read all of the things. I still don't agree with the unbootable bit though. That hasn't happened on any of my systems (two Arch machines, two Arch-based Antergos machines) in over a year without it being my own fault tinkering with something. I don't know man, maybe we're running completely different hardware or something.
        tinco 11y ago
        Please note that I ran Arch for over 5 years, upgrading perhaps once or twice a year. Rebooting only at power failures, and at particularly bad security issues. The hardware was a Pentium 4. This was years ago (when I was in college).
        seba_dos1 11y ago
        That's basically guaranteed to break your system on Arch. Don't do that - it's your fault when it breaks like that.
        castratikron 11y ago
        >they might switch to systemd I remember that day. I was an Arch user at the time. For me, everything went without a hitch, but I know a couple of my friends had a lot of grief over the switch, especially since they had no idea the switch was happening until after things broke.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    If distrowatch can be trusted, they have so as of 15.4...
digi_owl 11y ago
> I also think there's another bug with xscreensaver where it will capture and "hang on" to your keyboard after you've unlocked the machine. You sure you are running the latest version? That is the origins of this message. That Debian (and perhaps other distros) would fail to push xscreensavers in a timely manner, resulting in JWZ getting emails about issues he had long since fixed. This seems to stem from a policy that only security issues (resulting in a CVE being published) will be processed, while usability issues are left in place until the next major stable release is rolled out. I can see two reason for this. A: that the thinking around stable is heavily server oriented. Thus anything but CVEs being excluded result in reduced risk of production breakages. This even though Debian is a generic distro that can be molded into desktop or server usage depending on what gets installed. B: that the rigidity of traditional package management do not allow a piecemeal updating process. This because updating a package removes the old package in the process. Thus if you want to bump up the xscreensaver version, and it hard depends on a newer lib somewhere in the dependency chain, you end up with an unresolvable conflict unless you also update everything else that depends on the same lib.
- castratikron 11y ago
  Oh, maybe I should update to the latest xscreensaver by hand, then. Thanks. Of course, then I run into your B problem, where there isn't a really good way of installing your own versions that aren't in the repos. I was able to blacklist the kernel from updating itself, somehow, so I really just need to figure out how to do that again.
- ashitlerferad 11y ago
  > only security issues ... will be processed That isn't actually the policy, for example: https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160402 https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160402
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    > This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems.

tinco 11y ago

... to another distro that actually ships up to date software?

castratikron 11y ago
Not a chance! Debian is the only sane Linux distro. Xubuntu would by alright if they ever decide to switch to systemd.
- tinco 11y ago
  Fair enough, I only use insane distros. I quit Debian because I wanted to dev in Ruby and it wouldn't let me. Then I used Archlinux for a while, but having to use rescue mode everytime I did 'pacman -Syu' got a little old so I switched to a sane OS for a while. Seriously, aren't both Ubuntu and CentOS not much saner than Debian? Anyway, my sane period ended a while ago, it's full on NixOS now, why are people still using OS'es that are not the future?.
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Keep in mind that Ubuntu and offshots are based on Debian Unstable, not Stable. And the problem that the bugreport is about is that Stable would not get bugfix updates, resulting in JWZ getting emails for long fixed bugs. Thus he put in the "obsolete version" warning to get Stable users to pester Debian maintainers.
  - ferrari8608 11y ago
    Having to rescue your system after every upgrade is either an exaggeration or you do weird things with your system. If the latter, quit that. I had my Arch system running for over a year, upgraded at least once a week. Only once did I need the rescue disk, and that was my own fault (some um... "clever" pacman command I dreamed up ended up uninstalling some pretty important things like all of base).
    - tinco 11y ago
      It's a joke about how Archlinux works. If you do a "pacman -Syu" without reading the changelogs there is a good chance your system won't boot. You just can't be negligent. They might change the location of libc, they might switch to systemd, they change whatever they need to to be the coolest operating system on the block, and that's why I love them. But if you weren't hip to it, your system won't boot.
      - ferrari8608 11y ago
        Arch isn't a distro for people who take issue to reading up on what they're actually doing to their system with upgrades, package installations, and configuration. That's why they have one of the most amazing wikis around. It's expected that you read all of the things. I still don't agree with the unbootable bit though. That hasn't happened on any of my systems (two Arch machines, two Arch-based Antergos machines) in over a year without it being my own fault tinkering with something. I don't know man, maybe we're running completely different hardware or something.
        tinco 11y ago
        Please note that I ran Arch for over 5 years, upgrading perhaps once or twice a year. Rebooting only at power failures, and at particularly bad security issues. The hardware was a Pentium 4. This was years ago (when I was in college).
        seba_dos1 11y ago
        That's basically guaranteed to break your system on Arch. Don't do that - it's your fault when it breaks like that.
      - castratikron 11y ago
        >they might switch to systemd I remember that day. I was an Arch user at the time. For me, everything went without a hitch, but I know a couple of my friends had a lot of grief over the switch, especially since they had no idea the switch was happening until after things broke.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  If distrowatch can be trusted, they have so as of 15.4...

digi_owl 11y ago

> I also think there's another bug with xscreensaver where it will capture and "hang on" to your keyboard after you've unlocked the machine. You sure you are running the latest version? That is the origins of this message. That Debian (and perhaps other distros) would fail to push xscreensavers in a timely manner, resulting in JWZ getting emails about issues he had long since fixed. This seems to stem from a policy that only security issues (resulting in a CVE being published) will be processed, while usability issues are left in place until the next major stable release is rolled out. I can see two reason for this. A: that the thinking around stable is heavily server oriented. Thus anything but CVEs being excluded result in reduced risk of production breakages. This even though Debian is a generic distro that can be molded into desktop or server usage depending on what gets installed. B: that the rigidity of traditional package management do not allow a piecemeal updating process. This because updating a package removes the old package in the process. Thus if you want to bump up the xscreensaver version, and it hard depends on a newer lib somewhere in the dependency chain, you end up with an unresolvable conflict unless you also update everything else that depends on the same lib.

castratikron 11y ago
Oh, maybe I should update to the latest xscreensaver by hand, then. Thanks. Of course, then I run into your B problem, where there isn't a really good way of installing your own versions that aren't in the repos. I was able to blacklist the kernel from updating itself, somehow, so I really just need to figure out how to do that again.
ashitlerferad 11y ago
> only security issues ... will be processed That isn't actually the policy, for example: https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160402 https://www.debian.org/News/2016/20160402
- digi_owl 11y ago
  > This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments for serious problems.