> > The kernel implements its own screen saver and that is the screen blanking or
> > vesa/apm blanking. I know that vesa/apm blanking is runtime configurable, but I
>don't
> > think the regular screen blanking (erasing of all characters on screen) is. So
>unless
> > you don't want your text mode screensaver to be active for awhile until the kernel
>screen
> > blanker kicks in, you'll need to do something with the kernel.
> >
> > I dont know if this got into the kernel or not, but at one time I remember seeing
>a small
> > patch that would send kerneld a ipc message when it wanted a screensaver to
>activate. Kerneld
> > would then response by invoking the userspace program.
> >
> > /dev/random garbage is generated by what the kernel developers thought of as
>random events. The
> > timing between keystrokes and interrupts (mouse) are used as a seed. While it
>does become active
> > and spew out garbage when you hit the keyboard and mouse, I'm pretty sure thats
>not the only events
> > that drive it. Besides, if you have a daemon process in the background with
>/dev/random open, I
> > am not sure if another process can open it.
> >
> > ~Jesse Off
>
> Hmm, and Linus wants this to become a desktop OS huh? Heh, without hooks for
> even minimal screensaver capabilities in console mode, I'm starting to lose
The screensaver capabiities you speak of only consist on 2 (two) lines of
code.
If you like an OS with many hooks, there are DOS (hookable interrupts) or
GNU HURD (for example it provides 3 hooks for forks ...).
Linux can already be made a desktop OS (there are KDE, GNOME ...), but
they depend on X, but there is also the GGI project...
Ciao
Michele
