Bug#700900: gnome-session: In 3.8.4 fails unless X Windows blank and DPMS disabled

[Daniel Dickinson]

Package: gnome-session
Version: 3.8.4-4
Followup-For: Bug #700900

Initially I thought the problem was because gnome-screensaver no longer autostarts (which it
doesn't except in Classic mode now, but apparently that is by design and not a bug, although
there is a paucity of information by which to learn this fact), however I have since
discovered the problem is that, at least in an upgrade from Wheezy scenario, the default
configuration is for X Windows to have screen blanking and dpms settings that if not disabled
prevent gnome-session from getting the information it needs.

In short, disabling X Windows screen blanking and dpms resolved this issue, but really it should be
automatically done on upgrade and/or enabling the gnome-session idle and lock timeout should do
the appropriate thing without required arcane CLI stuff (not that I can't do ridiculously long
one-liners if need calls for it, but requiring the average user to this sort of thing (if they
can even find the appropriate commands, since the information is not readily accesible) is not
really viable.  Besides even command line gurus don't necessarily want to do everything by hand;
this isn't Linux From Scratch or Gentoo after all.

Personally as much as I like fine control, I don't want to have spend all my time dealing with
configuring my desktop, or spending mental effort on things that I would rather have 'just work',
especially when I've got better or at least more urgent things to worry about.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.14-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_CA.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_CA.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages gnome-session depends on:
ii  gnome-session-bin      3.8.4-4
ii  gnome-session-common   3.8.4-4
ii  gnome-settings-daemon  3.8.5-2+b2
ii  gnome-shell            3.8.4-8.1

gnome-session recommends no packages.

Versions of packages gnome-session suggests:
ii  desktop-base      7.0.3
ii  gnome-keyring     3.8.2-2+b1
ii  gnome-user-guide  3.8.2-1

-- no debconf information