release notes for Linux v2.6.8

The man page is available.

Bug: voting feedback will not work if you use a cache directory other than the default (~/.sheep).

The database of sheep bugs under debian. A tutorial for installation on Ubuntu, which may also benefit those with recent versions of Fedora that use gnome-screensaver instead of xscreensaver. See also.

1) You should install the hacked version of xscreensaver that has an option to pass key-presses on to Electric Sheep. Documentation is here. First say "xscreensaver-command -exit", then expand the archive and cd into it. Then "./configure", "make", "sudo make install". Then run xscreensaver-demo, look in the lower-left-hand corner of its window and make sure "Pass Most Keypresses" is checked on. Then try voting with the up arrow key.

2) You should set the xscreensaver "Cycle After" time to a high value such as 700 minutes. Open up your screen-saver configuration panel or run the command xscreensaver-demo, and look in the lower-left-hand corner of the window, just above "Blank After".

3) KDE users may use this file to run Electric Sheep nativly in KScreenSaver (local mirror, install into $KDEROOT/share/applnk/System/ScreenSavers).

4) It depends on curl and expat, so you may have to install them first.

Change Log

2.6.8: use new libpng api, handle libpng errors properly (from nix at esperi.org.uk). name the window. update documentation. update use of AC_OUTPUT. handle readonly parts of the cache. avoid playing files partially downloaded by bittorrent. add --show-errors option.

2.6.7: Save sheep in the right place (thanks tais hansen).

2.6.6: Eliminate unreasonable static storage. When changing generations only delete sheep from the generation we are leaving. This allows keeping archives of sheep in the cache without fear of deletion.

2.6.5: Recursively read cache directory to be compatible with bittorrent client that subscribes to the feed.

2.6.4: Protect again buffer overflows. Remove use of tif and xsetbg.

2.6.3: fix bug where all sheep could be deleted because of network errors! fix bug where special env args to flam3-animate were not necessarily null-terminated! zoom down to fit in the xscreensaver preview window. better logging. update to latest flam3 library. make gcc4 happy & update autotools. update man page. man page generated by configure. autogenerate electricsheep.spec and electricsheep.xml with current version number.

2.6.2: fix the RPM. generate uniqueid in client and save in in .sheep/rc instead of at install time in /usr/share/local... add init_delay_list to be even nicer to servers.

2.6.1: update flam3 library (may have produced crash or bad result), reduce load on server and startup smoother.