Comment 144 for bug 434476

(In reply to Sergey Kondakov from comment #86)
> 2) GNOME screensaver requires the core GNOME framework to go with it, not
> just GTK. Kinda overkill for a screensaver.
Scratch that ! I just read up on:
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/10/has-gnome-3-decided-that-people-shouldnt-want-screen-savers/ (from XSS author)
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/desktop-o-screensaver (Ubuntu fix plan that gone nowhere)
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-screensaver/+bug/994612 (report about complete uselessness of GNOME SS)

Long story short:
Gnome gone Reverse-Xzibit and removed screensaver out of... their screensaver. Which locks the screen... but HAS NOT SCREENSAVERS.

> Which makes whole thing pretty much useless.
Even more than i imagined and complained previously.
> Moreover, aforementioned "Caffeine" Ubuntu hack is pretty crude...
Looks like in non-obsolete versions they removed XSS support... if it even worked. Which makes it also not an option.
> And i don't exactly expect "modern features". I expect _Firefox to
> inhibit/suspend a screensaver when it draws a video. Any videos and any
> screensavers_.
All of that above makes XSS The Only Option of having actual screensavers under X (except using KDE SS BUT ONLY under KDE session, because it's not even a binary).
And for that to work either:
1) FF devs must play nice with XSS
2) XSS dev should be persuaded to provide dbus interface as dbus today is the cross-DE daemon interface
3) XSS could be forked by a hacker who's not afraid of dbus

In any case this bug cannot be closed as "FIXED" because actual screesaver is not getting disabled under Linux, only lockers are.