electric sheep

Dimitime · 11-08-2008, 04:49 PM

After extensive googleing I managed to not find a how-to on how to install electric sheep. I tried downloading the electric sheep source and doing the standard ./configure make make install. They seem to go well, but the make install step returns a few errors at the end. The sheep do download, and when I open xscreensaver i can see the sheep in the mini window. However, when it comes time for the screensaver to actually go up, it returns a bunch of errors. Something along the lines of X error of failed request: bad match. Any thoughts? Other xscreensavers work.

onebuck · 11-08-2008, 07:58 PM

Hi,

My crystal ball is cracked therefore when I look into it to look over your shoulder everything is not clear. Somewhat like your post. No relative information, error messages or what your procedures were to produce the problem(s).

You could look at the next two links to assist you;

Dimitime · 11-08-2008, 09:50 PM

All right. Maybe you didn't read my post. Here is step by step what I did.

1. Download and extract electric sheep source tarball.
2. ./configure
3. make
4. make install (this is the error I get at the end of the process)

Code:

make[2]: *** [install-data-local] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/dimitar/electricsheep-2.6.8'
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/dimitar/electricsheep-2.6.8'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

5. When I type electricsheep into the terminal, this is the error I get.

Code:

X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  140 (XVideo)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  19 ()
  Serial number of failed request:  159
  Current serial number in output stream:  159
Terminated

T3slider · 11-08-2008, 11:02 PM

Your make install error is likely incomplete. Is there any terminal output before those lines? They don't actually explain the error itself. I would try installing the app myself, but a brief read of the instructions makes me nervous about security implications. Also, the installation instructions here link to this script intended for use on an Ubuntu system. It is a nice guide on why things could be broken (though running it would not work, obviously). First of all, it seems to rely on gnome (or at least gconf, libgnome-menu and libgnomeui). I'm not sure if it would work without gnome or not -- the configure script appears to be very poorly written (it may just be automatically generated). mplayer seems to be a dependency as well. It looks like flam3 is a dependency, but even without that installed the configure script doesn't complain a bit (though it appears to create a flam3.pc file -- so I think flam3 is probably required even though the terrible configure script isn't complaining). On closer inspection I think the latest stable version tarball (electricsheep-2.6.8.tar.gz) may bundle flam3 with it, so this may not be a concern at all. The README suggests it needs xloadimage, which I don't *think* is present in Slackware.

This seems like a sort of messy project; the stable tarball includes flam3 and mpeg2dec, and I'm not sure if they would overwrite what is already on my system (I have mpeg2dec already). The svn version seems to bundle ffmpeg. The worst part about this is, I don't see a way of disabling ffmpeg, and it doesn't check if ffmpeg is already installed; it just installs it anyway. This is really NOT how a well-written Linux application should work; it should not just bundle and reinstall dependencies (that's the Windows way of doing things). I tried to make a SlackBuild for you, but I don't think I can continue on this without actually installing it to my system (which I refuse to do), and even if I did it would be messy.

Although I don't like the idea of the program, it's the implementation that is really terrible. I would try the svn version I guess and roughly follow the instructions in the linked shell script I guess -- but I would say good luck.

zuzoa · 11-26-2008, 01:33 AM

I also have this error on Slackware 12.1. Here is my error:

Code:

test -e /usr/share/control-center/screensavers && /usr/bin/ginstall -c electricsheep.xml /usr/share/control-center/screensavers
make[2]: *** [install-data-local] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/susie/electricsheep-2.6.8'
make[1]: *** [install-am] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/susie/electricsheep-2.6.8'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

I installed xscreensaver 5.07 from source (not the "hacked" version 4.19 on the electric sheep website -- it wouldn't compile).

gnashley · 11-26-2008, 02:26 AM

The error comes from this line:
test -e /usr/share/control-center/screensavers && /usr/bin/ginstall -c electricsheep.xml /usr/share/control-center/screensavers
since you won't have control-center on stock Slackware. Try using the '-i' option to install:
make -i install

zuzoa · 11-26-2008, 07:19 PM

I installed with 'make -i install' and it bypassed the error, but then when I ran the program, I got this:

Code:

bash-3.1$ electricsheep
please be patient while the first sheep is downloaded...
X Error of failed request:  BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request:  139 (XVideo)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  19 ()
  Serial number of failed request:  158
  Current serial number in output stream:  158
Terminated

I had to leave the program running all night as it seemed to be hanging on the "please be patient" line, even though conky didn't show any signs of downloading anything.