Xscreensaver - This version is very old

[Markus Robert Kessler]

Hi all,

starting a few days ago, Xscreensaver always displays above mentioned
message in the password entry screen when it is locked.

I don't expect Xscreensaver to refuse working completely, but at least it
is annoying.

I have

Name : xscreensaver
Version : 6.08
Release : 1.mga9.tainted
Architecture: x86_64
Source RPM : xscreensaver-6.08-1.mga9.tainted.src.rpm
Build Date : Mo 16 Okt 2023 10:01:06 CEST

and it seems that this is the most recent version.

Does anyone know what's behind this behaviour?

Best regards,

Markus

[David W. Hodgins]

Post by Markus Robert Kessler
Hi all,
starting a few days ago, Xscreensaver always displays above mentioned
message in the password entry screen when it is locked.
I don't expect Xscreensaver to refuse working completely, but at least it
is annoying.

The program is hard coded to display the message if it's more than 18 months
since it was released, whether there is a new version or not.

As it's only on the startup screen with the settings and help buttons, and does not
impact the actual running of the screensaver, I'd just ignore it.

If you want, feel free to open a bug report asking to either update it or to comment out
the code (lines 671 to 692 of driver/xscreensaver.c which has ...
if (verbose_p || debug_p)
{
fprintf (stderr,
"\tXScreenSaver " XSCREENSAVER_VERSION ", released %s\n"
"\tCopyright \302\251 1991-%d by"
" Jamie Zawinski <***@jwz.org>\n\n",
buf, tm->tm_year + 1900);
if (months > 18)
fprintf (stderr,
/* Hey jerks, the only time someone will see this particular
message is if they are running xscreensaver with '-log' in
order to send me a bug report, and they had damned well
better try the latest release before they do that --
even if your perma-out-of-date distro does not make that
easily available to them. */
"\t ###################################################\n"
"\t ### ###\n"
"\t ### THIS VERSION IS VERY OLD! PLEASE UPGRADE! ###\n"
"\t ### ###\n"
"\t ###################################################\n"
"\n");
}

Regards, Dave Hodgins

[David W. Hodgins]

Post by David W. Hodgins

Post by Markus Robert Kessler
Hi all,
starting a few days ago, Xscreensaver always displays above mentioned
message in the password entry screen when it is locked.
I don't expect Xscreensaver to refuse working completely, but at least it
is annoying.

The program is hard coded to display the message if it's more than 18 months
since it was released, whether there is a new version or not.

Forgot to add. You can also run "xscreensaver --no-splash" instead of just xscreensaver to
suppress the startup screen.

Regards, Dave Hodgins