Dear Maintainer,

*** Reporter, please consider answering these questions, where appropriate ***

   * What led up to the situation?

I installed the screensaver and selected it, on running I observed lots of repetition,
and not that much variety in the images displayed.

   * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?

Installed a larger dictionary, then ran the demo with verbose output enabled ( -vv )
Although I inspected the upstream source, the idea of trying to compile on an old
PII (klamath) machine put me off the idea of attempting to modify the search routines,
or try using the slightly newer upstream version.

   * What was the outcome of this action?

The dictionary appeared to make little difference, output from the -vv --no-output
options indicated the majority of sources returning no images, and a very heavy
reliance on results from flikr.

   * What outcome did you expect instead?

I expected a decent sized dictionary to result in a wide variety of images, without
much repetition.

Here's an idea, try running a version of xscreensaver that is not over a year old.

Yes, you have made the mistake of using Debian. I realize that they go out of their way to make that difficult for you. My sympathies.

Not to appear antagonistic in any way, but what distro would you suggest for a Pentuim 2 with limited RAM?

I fear I'm pretty limited in choices if I wish the thing to run at all.  Using Debian it's surprisingly functional, with the exception of web browsing.

Your own site advises, and I quote:

If you are using Debian, you should be able to find a more recent version of

XScreenSaver in their so-called "unstable" packages<http://packages.debian.org/unstable/x11/xscreensaver>. Scroll down, find the .deb

package for your architecture, and install that.

Which is exactly what I have done.

I honestly don't fancy compiling from source, I compiled a kernel once on that box.

It took a week to complete.

This is doubtless out-of-turn, but have you considered the possibility of making .debs available on your site?

I have some sympathy with your position as a developer, I'm sure it's frustrating having things you've fixed reported,

Which is why I've used the Debian BTS rather than reporting a bug on your own site.

I'm hopeful that having a bug might encourage the version in Sid to get bumped.

I might also add that on my other box, running Gentoo, which most consider pretty cutting-edge and up to date (being a rolling distro) EVEN THERE I had to UNMASK a version marked unstable to fix this.. and it's not like I'm running Jessie.. the version in Buster is LESS than a year old.. and NO NEWER version in SID for me to even attempt back-porting.

Your beef Mr. JWZ is with Debian STABLE which is NOT what I'm running!

Well,

5.36 was released on 11 Oct 2016, which, as of the date of this bug report, was 1 year and 3 days old.

5.37, which contains webcollage updates, was released on 5 July 2017.

The latency with which distros package it up for you is entirely out of my hands.

Then perhaps for MAJOR Distros on Distrowatch, possibly the top 5 or so.. (the top TWO would catch Debian) you might consider packaging xscreensaver up for yourself in the latest incarnation, so that users of THOSE can install the latest version without having to bother you or compile it themselves.  Just a thought.  When I can afford a new hard drive for the newer hardware I have on hand ( which has a faulty one, which I can't swap the PATA one from the box I reported this from to a SATA one (incompatible interfaces and wrong form factor)) compiling from source will be less of an issue.

I'm not averse to going "Off the reservation" and installing .debs from sources outside the "official" repos if suitable packages are available, and I have done so, adding an entire repo,  in order to get Debian running a graphical environment without systemd, which bogs this old box down (I'm guessing by too much parallelism for it) but I guess doing so would remove your excuse to bitch about Debian. A distro who's philosophy you clearly dislike.

Alternately and for less effort, switch your licence to something Debian don't like and force them to either drop or fork the project. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL v2<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTFPL%20v2> licence winds them up and is "unacceptable" *to them* even though the Free Software Foundation found it compatible.  Then you can ignore Debian users like me completely.

Sadly Distrowatch is incapable of allowing a search for distros based on the version of xscreensaver, but I suspect FEW are on the latest version... Seriously you need to chill out and let the DEBIAN maintainers WHO I ADDRESSED in the first instance handle this rather than getting wound up!

I see the latest version in OUR maintainer's git, so I'm guessing it won't be all that long finding its way to testing.. which is where I am.

Your blood pressure will lower if you quit watching the Debian BTS.

Hi,
With regards to the latest XScreenSaver release, which I hope will fix
this issue, I was fast getting it packaged up in git, but it has
sitting there for a while because I need to check all the Debian QA
stuff, new policies, etc, and get someone to review it, but most
importantly real life got in the way. Anyway from the changelog it
doesn't seem so crucial to get it out. Sometimes it goes more than a
year between upstream's releases also, I don't think a few months of
"ripening" is a big problem.

Regards,
Tormod

This has literally never happened.

There are typically 4-8 releases a year, but there have never been fewer than 2 per year, since 1992.

Haha, what are you smoking? I don't even bother to look it up, I guess
there is not even dates in your changelog. It is more like 1-2 per
calendar year maximum. The one that went into Debian's previous stable
release and you made so much fuzz about, had been the last release for
I don't know how long. Of course if there is a release in February one
year, and July and September the next year, there is one in every
calendar year, but it would be more than a year between.

Tormod

I guess what I'm smoking are called "facts"?

You said "Sometimes it goes more than a year between upstream's releases". This is false. The longest period ever between releases was 8.8 months, and the average time between releases has been 52 days.


 1.31:  May 18  1997 - I don't have exact dates for anything older.
 1.32:  May 24  1997 -    6 days elapsed
 1.33:  May 30  1997 -    6 days elapsed
 1.34:  May 31  1997 -    1 days elapsed
 1.35:  Jun  4  1997 -    4 days elapsed
 2.00:  Jun  7  1997 -    3 days elapsed
 2.01:  Jun 12  1997 -    5 days elapsed
 2.02:  Jun 17  1997 -    5 days elapsed
 2.03:  Jun 24  1997 -    7 days elapsed
 2.04:  Jun 29  1997 -    5 days elapsed
 2.05:  Jul  7  1997 -    8 days elapsed
 2.06:  Jul 23  1997 -   16 days elapsed
 2.07:  Aug  4  1997 -   12 days elapsed
 2.08:  Oct  7  1997 -  2.1 months elapsed
 2.09:  Oct  7  1997 -    0 days elapsed
 2.10:  Oct 18  1997 -   11 days elapsed
 2.11:  Nov 17  1997 -   30 days elapsed
 2.12:  Nov 25  1997 -    8 days elapsed
 2.13:  Dec  3  1997 -    8 days elapsed
 2.14:  Dec 21  1997 -   18 days elapsed
 2.15:  Jan 17  1998 -   27 days elapsed
 2.16:  Feb 21  1998 -   35 days elapsed
 2.17:  Jun  1  1998 -  3.3 months elapsed
 2.18:  Jun  4  1998 -    3 days elapsed
 2.19:  Jun  4  1998 -    0 days elapsed
 2.20:  Jun 10  1998 -    6 days elapsed
 2.21:  Jun 14  1998 -    4 days elapsed
 2.22:  Jun 20  1998 -    6 days elapsed
 2.23:  Jun 21  1998 -    1 days elapsed
 2.24:  Jun 30  1998 -    9 days elapsed
 2.25:  Jul 25  1998 -   25 days elapsed
 2.26:  Jul 25  1998 -    0 days elapsed
 2.27:  Aug  4  1998 -   10 days elapsed
 2.28:  Sep 21  1998 -   48 days elapsed
 2.29:  Sep 23  1998 -    2 days elapsed
 2.30:  Sep 23  1998 -    0 days elapsed
 2.31:  Oct  2  1998 -    9 days elapsed
 2.32:  Oct  4  1998 -    2 days elapsed
 2.33:  Oct  5  1998 -    1 days elapsed
 2.34:  Oct  8  1998 -    3 days elapsed
 2.35:  Oct 19  1998 -   11 days elapsed
 3.00:  Oct 20  1998 -    1 days elapsed
 3.01:  Oct 24  1998 -    4 days elapsed
 3.02:  Oct 25  1998 -    1 days elapsed
 3.03:  Nov 15  1998 -   21 days elapsed
 3.04:  Nov 15  1998 -    0 days elapsed
 3.05:  Nov 20  1998 -    5 days elapsed
 3.06:  Nov 21  1998 -    1 days elapsed
 3.07:  Jan  2  1999 -   42 days elapsed
 3.08:  Mar 15  1999 -  2.4 months elapsed
 3.09:  Apr 11  1999 -   26 days elapsed
 3.10:  Apr 27  1999 -   16 days elapsed
 3.11:  May  7  1999 -   10 days elapsed
 3.12:  May 10  1999 -    3 days elapsed
 3.13:  May 31  1999 -   21 days elapsed
 3.14:  Jun  5  1999 -    5 days elapsed
 3.15:  Jun 20  1999 -   15 days elapsed
 3.16:  Jun 23  1999 -    3 days elapsed
 3.17:  Jul 15  1999 -   22 days elapsed
 3.18:  Oct 13  1999 -  3.0 months elapsed
 3.19:  Oct 30  1999 -   17 days elapsed
 3.20:  Nov 12  1999 -   13 days elapsed
 3.21:  Nov 17  1999 -    5 days elapsed
 3.22:  Dec  8  1999 -   21 days elapsed
 3.23:  Jan 30  2000 -   53 days elapsed
 3.24:  Apr  3  2000 -  2.1 months elapsed
 3.25:  Jul 18  2000 -  3.5 months elapsed
 3.26:  Nov 10  2000 -  3.8 months elapsed
 3.27:  Jan 19  2001 -  2.3 months elapsed
 3.28:  Jan 23  2001 -    4 days elapsed
 3.29:  Feb  5  2001 -   13 days elapsed
 3.30:  Mar 19  2001 -   42 days elapsed
 3.31:  Mar 28  2001 -    9 days elapsed
 3.32:  Apr 14  2001 -   16 days elapsed
 3.33:  May 19  2001 -   35 days elapsed
 3.34:  Oct 25  2001 -  5.2 months elapsed
 4.00:  Nov 21  2001 -   27 days elapsed
 4.01:  Feb 24  2002 -  3.1 months elapsed
 4.02:  Mar 18  2002 -   22 days elapsed
 4.03:  Apr 30  2002 -   42 days elapsed
 4.04:  May 28  2002 -   28 days elapsed
 4.05:  Jun  8  2002 -   11 days elapsed
 4.06:  Oct 23  2002 -  4.5 months elapsed
 4.07:  Feb  3  2003 -  3.4 months elapsed
 4.08:  Feb 18  2003 -   15 days elapsed
 4.09:  Mar 17  2003 -   27 days elapsed
 4.10:  May 20  2003 -  2.1 months elapsed
 4.11:  Jun 23  2003 -   34 days elapsed
 4.12:  Aug 14  2003 -   52 days elapsed
 4.13:  Sep  7  2003 -   24 days elapsed
 4.14:  Oct 25  2003 -   48 days elapsed
 4.15:  Feb 26  2004 -  4.1 months elapsed
 4.16:  May 12  2004 -  2.5 months elapsed
 4.17:  Aug 14  2004 -  3.1 months elapsed
 4.18:  Aug 14  2004 -    0 days elapsed
 4.19:  Dec 16  2004 -  4.1 months elapsed
 4.20:  Feb 23  2005 -  2.3 months elapsed
 4.21:  Mar 20  2005 -   25 days elapsed
 4.22:  Jun 22  2005 -  3.1 months elapsed
 4.23:  Oct 21  2005 -  4.0 months elapsed
 4.24:  Feb  8  2006 -  3.6 months elapsed
 5.00:  May 23  2006 -  3.4 months elapsed
 5.01:  Sep 18  2006 -  3.9 months elapsed
 5.02:  Apr 20  2007 -  7.0 months elapsed
 5.03:  Jul 17  2007 -  2.9 months elapsed
 5.04:  Nov 13  2007 -  3.9 months elapsed
 5.05:  Mar  1  2008 -  3.6 months elapsed
 5.06:  Jul 16  2008 -  4.5 months elapsed
 5.07:  Aug 10  2008 -   25 days elapsed
 5.08:  Dec 27  2008 -  4.6 months elapsed
 5.09:  Sep  3  2009 -  8.2 months elapsed
 5.10:  Sep  7  2009 -    4 days elapsed
 5.11:  Apr 13  2010 -  7.2 months elapsed
 5.12:  Sep 15  2010 -  5.1 months elapsed
 5.13:  Apr 18  2011 -  7.1 months elapsed
 5.14:  May 20  2011 -   32 days elapsed
 5.15:  Sep 28  2011 -  4.3 months elapsed
 5.16:  Jun 19  2012 -  8.7 months elapsed
 5.17:  Jun 22  2012 -    3 days elapsed
 5.18:  Jul  3  2012 -   11 days elapsed
 5.19:  Jul 26  2012 -   23 days elapsed
 5.20:  Oct  6  2012 -  2.4 months elapsed
 5.21:  Feb  4  2013 -  4.0 months elapsed
 5.22:  Jul 16  2013 -  5.3 months elapsed
 5.23:  Nov  9  2013 -  3.8 months elapsed
 5.24:  Dec  7  2013 -   28 days elapsed
 5.25:  Dec  9  2013 -    2 days elapsed
 5.26:  Dec  9  2013 -    0 days elapsed
 5.27:  May 27  2014 -  5.5 months elapsed
 5.28:  Jun  4  2014 -    8 days elapsed
 5.29:  Jun  8  2014 -    4 days elapsed
 5.30:  Sep 11  2014 -  3.1 months elapsed
 5.31:  Nov 15  2014 -  2.1 months elapsed
 5.32:  Nov 18  2014 -    3 days elapsed
 5.33:  Jun 25  2015 -  7.2 months elapsed
 5.34:  Oct 24  2015 -  4.0 months elapsed
 5.35:  May 24  2016 -  7.0 months elapsed
 5.36:  Oct 10  2016 -  4.6 months elapsed
 5.37:  Jul  5  2017 -  8.8 months elapsed

Dang, you're right. It has only gone almost 9 months sometimes. Nice
table. perl?