How-To: Install Electricsheep as a screensaver in LMDE Mate and Mint Mate

[zaileion]

To install electricsheep in Linux Mint Mate and set it up to be a screensaver complete the following: Good Luck!

Open a terminal and type or copy/paste the following:

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sudo apt-get install subversion autoconf libtool libgtk2.0-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libxml2-dev libgtop2-dev libboost-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-thread-dev libtinyxml-dev freeglut3-dev glee-dev freeglut3-dev libltdl7 libltdl-dev

and

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apt-get install xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl-extra

then

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cd /usr/share/applications/screensavers

finally

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sudo perl -p -i -e 's/OnlyShowIn=GNOME;/OnlyShowIn=GNOME;MATE;/g' *.desktop

Download flame3 from here:
http://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/repo/pkgs ... 5ddf05545/

Download wxWidgets (linux source code) from here:
https://www.wxwidgets.org/downloads/

Download ElectricSheep-Master from here:
https://github.com/Ichthyostega/electricsheep
There is a "Download ZIP" button on the right.

Open your Downloads folder and click on each of the 3 items you downloaded and select "extract here"
This will create 3 more folders in your Downloads folder:
wxWidgets-3.1.0
and
flam3-2.7.18
and
electricsheep-master

Double click on the flam3-2.7.18 folder. Inside of that folder right click on an area where there are no icons and select "open in terminal". This will open a terminal window.
Inside the terminal type or copy/paste the following (Each line is a new command don't type or copy/paste everything, do each line individually):

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./configure
make
sudo make install

Go back to your downloads folder and double click wxWidgets-3.1.0 folder. Inside of that folder right click on an area where there are no icons and select "open in terminal". This will open a terminal window.
Inside the terminal type or copy/paste the following (Each line is a new command don't type or copy paste everything, do each line individually):

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autogen.sh
./configure
make
sudo make install

Go back to your downloads folder and double click electricsheep-master folder, then double click client_generic folder. Inside of that folder right click on an area where there are no icons and select "open in terminal". This will open a terminal window.
Inside the terminal type or copy/paste the following (Each line is a new command don't type or copy paste everything, do each line individually):

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autogen.sh
./configure
make CXXFLAGS+="-DGL_GLEXT_PROTOTYPES=1"  (((Or in Debian sid use: make CXXFLAGS+=-pthread)))
sudo make install

now in any terminal type the following:

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electricsheep

This will launch electricsheep as a test to make sure everything above went well. just hit "esc" to close electricsheep

Now for the tricky part:

type the following in a terminal:

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sudo caja /usr/lib/xscreensaver

right click in an area where there are no icons and select "Create Document" "Empty File"
just press "Enter" to leave it named "New File"
Now Double click on the "New File" to open and paste this inside (just "Select All and paste":

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#!/bin/sh
electricsheep --root 1

Save and Close
Now right click the file and click "Rename" and rename it electricsheep.sh (you will notice the icon changes)

Now right click the file and select "Properties" and select "Permissions"
Now click the box next to "Allow executing file as program" and close
Or you can type this in a terminal window:

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chmod 755 /usr/lib/xscreensaver/electricsheep.sh

type the following in a terminal:

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sudo caja /usr/share/applications/screensavers/

Look to see if there is an "ElectricSheep" file already in here if so right click and "delete"
right click in an area where there are no icons and select "Create Document" "Empty File"
just press "Enter" to leave it named "New File"
Now Double click on the "New File" to open and paste this inside (just "Select All and paste":

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[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=ElectricSheep
Comment=Electric Sheep is a distributed screen-saver that harnesses idle computers into a render farm with the purpose of animating and evolving artificial life-forms. This module requires a high-bandwidth, always-on connection to the internet such as DSL or cable-modem. The first time you run it, it normally takes 5 to 10 minutes before the first sheep is downloaded and displayed. After that, it should come up immediately. If you have installed the hacked xscreensaver that supports passing key-presses onto the graphics hack and this feature is enabled, then pressing the up arrow-key transmits a vote for the currently displayed sheep to the server. The votes are the basis of a fitness function for an evolutionary algorithm on the sheep genomes. Vote for the sheep you like, and they will mate, reproduce, and evolve! See http://electricsheep.org for more information.
TryExec=electricsheep.sh
Exec="electricsheep.sh"
StartupNotify=false
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Screensaver

Save and Close
Now right click the file and click "Rename" and rename it ElectricSheep.desktop (you will notice the icon changes)


All that's left is to open Control Panel and Screensaver and select ElectricSheep.
Thats it. If you have problems or you find errors please let me know so i can make changes.

[hmeista]

Great article. Thank You! I had to run ./autogen.sh. Also my ElectricSheep.desktop file had to specify the entire path to electricsheep.sh: TryExec=/usr/lib/xscreensaver/electricsheep.sh
Exec="/usr/lib/xscreensaver/electricsheep.sh" Thanks again!