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In xscreensaver I'm using carousel (does same for GLSlideshow...), but notice it only 'randomly' selects very few photo files from the directory for the carousel, many are repeated several times in the carousel, while many never even get chosen, even after many reloads... I'm using dual monitors, and there appears to be two carousels going with differing photo layouts, but still always the same photos get recycled while others always seem to get ignored.

Any way to have it go thru and use all or at least most of the photos in the designated directory? I don't care about randomness, just inclusiveness... I've looked at 'xscreensaver-getimage', but it's not a user level command :-\

The MAJOR
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  • This sounds like this could be ensured with a few lines of, or even less code. Maybe you could open a ticket for it on the project's official bugtracker. – Levente Jun 13 '21 at 21:32
  • would not know even how to do that, where to do that, what to convey... – The MAJOR Jun 14 '21 at 00:14
  • From the Ubuntu packages repository (maybe a preferable resource, as it's Ubuntu-specific?) I found the links to ask a question, or to report a bug. (Launchpad login needed...) – Levente Jun 14 '21 at 01:15
  • Ah look, very detailed instructions on what is expected in a bug report: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/bugs.html – Levente Jun 14 '21 at 01:54
  • Don't think it's a 'bug'... more of a limitation, and SO.....

    I emailed the guy in charge of xscreensaver as a 'wish' (ie that randomness be more inclusive).

    A little fyi - I am very limited as to this deep Linux stuff you guys go on about, which is why I post questions here. I have MS nerve damage which has severely impaired my hands (numb + loss of dexterity), so taking notes, running down stuff, is painful and difficult. I'm very old, a cancer surgery chemo survivor, and had VATS w/pleurodsis on both lungs - not long for this world anyway, heh, heh :-}

     – The MAJOR Jun 15 '21 at 18:48
  • Got this back: Hi Jaimie,

    Thanks for sending me your first bug report! Ideally you should file it in a bug tracker though, and if this was experienced on Ubuntu, you should file it there first.

    Anyway, this is something I have suspected myself sometimes, but I think it boils down to perception bias. Remember that "random" doesn't mean all other pictures should be shown before a picture is shown a second time.

     – The MAJOR Jun 16 '21 at 13:19
  • To investigate this further, which you should do when filing the bug report, the xscreensaver-image-file command is indeed key. For a start, just run "xscreensaver-image-file --name ~/Pictures" (or wherever you have the pictures to be shown) once, then check the generated cache file ~/.cache/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-getimage.cache
    • does it contain all the pictures? If yes, run that command hundreds

    of times and see if you get all pictures eventually.

     – The MAJOR Jun 16 '21 at 13:19
  • You could make a script doing this and adding the selected file names to a log file, which you can then analyse with "sort", "uniq -c" and so on.

    Best regards, Tormod

     – The MAJOR Jun 16 '21 at 13:19
  • when I do I get: bash: xscreensaver-image-file --name ~/Pictures: No such file or directory and: sudo: /home/batgirl/.cache/xscreensaver/xscreensaver-getimage.cache: command not found – The MAJOR Jun 16 '21 at 13:25

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WHOA! Info from Tormod not useful as problem not with 'randomness', and speculation from me that problem was 'not good enough inclusiveness' off base too...

The whole problem is apparently MEMORY

I was advised to change my swapfile size (was 2Gb RAM / 2 GB SWAP) to bigger (2Gb RAM / 4Gb SWAP now) for another issue, and low and behold ALL (ie inclusive) the pictures in the directory are now 'randomly' going in and out of the carousel!!!

Video memory on the laptop is tied to RAM, and thus to swapfile... my borderline swapfile wasn't robust enough to support the graphically intensive carousel - it took shortcuts :-|

The MAJOR
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