Heavy screen savers?

I was just playing with an alpha daily-build of 20.04 (in safe mode). After some minutes it went into screen saver mode with gaseous lines undulating around the screen (blue and purple).

Within 30 seconds my laptop fan was running high speed. (Ryzen 3 cpu with Vega 3 gfx).

I was wondering: what purpose do screensaves serve today? Will an unchanging image “burn” into an LCD screen? (I’ve heard it won’t). Wouldn’t it be better (as a lightweight distro) to just go to black? Or, just a dimmed background image?

I guess it seems odd to me that a lightweight distro would include heavy eye candy. (I assume it’s heavy if it makes my fan start speed up.).

Also, doesn’t 4 workspaces seem like a lot for a lightweight distro? Two seems like it would be sufficient, and easy to find how to add two more if someone needed them. (Does having 4 use more memory than 2? I assume so.).

As an aside: back in 19.04 I wasn’t too jazzed with Lubuntu LXQt (after 4 years of using LXDE). But, this 20.04 looks nicer (more polished) to me in some way. Maybe just because I’ve been away from it for 9 months, got used to a different distro, etc.

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I think you raise a good point. From what I can tell, they don’t really serve their purpose anymore on modern screens. I also think just having the screen go black would be adequate for a “screen saver”. While I do like the funny affects that pop up every now and then, I personally wouldn’t cry over seeing them be dismissed by default on future releases.

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I’ve been thinking that dimming 50% might be a good default for a “screensaver.” If that could be configurable (0% means no screens saver. 100% means black). And then, perhaps an option for the more traditional/animated screen savers.

I suppose this would have to interoperate with screen locking. I can see how someone might like screen saving after 1 min (for example), and locking after 5 minutes. They might like 33% dimming after 1 minute. Black after 5 minutes (you wouldn’t probably want your desktop to be shown when locked, in my mind anyway).

The way it is now, it’s not a problem. But, with Lubuntu reinventing itself with LXQt, reestablishing “lightweight” (especially as Xfce seems to be getting larger?), this topic might be something Lubuntu could lead the way with. (I think Peppermint has gone this direction already.).

I don’t know. It just seems like when these animated screen savers come up, I feel like I’m back in the 90s (looking for my Leisure Suit Larry game). When that one I described caused the fan to rev up… that’s when I thought, “why are we doing this, especially on a lightweight-oriented distro?”

I thought I’d mention it to spur some thought. I’m glad someone thought it was a good point!

I also think this is a good idea.
I think dimming or a black screen with a small white text might do the trick.

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Nope, but they add security and look pretty.

I think having a little eye candy is an ok addition especially when the screensaver turns on when you’re otherwise idle. Don’t you think?

This is the way it has been in Lubuntu for a long time and is the default for Openbox to boot.

There is no noticable difference between having 1 or 99, actually.

There’s an option for additional screen savers and for blanking the screen, so you can do exactly what you’re asking for.

Actually, that’s not quite right

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I was hoping it wouldn’t turn into a “animated screen savers are bad” position. I was only suggesting that in this day and age that they seem like they’d be better suited as options, not the default. No problem if anyone likes fireworks, colliding galaxies, etc. But, they don’t really serve the purpose of saving the screen. (It may be worth considering that it’s environmentally unfriendly too. Personally, I wouldn’t obsess about that. But, conservation is a growing concern for many people.).

As a default, they seem outdated to me. Obviously I understand they can be disabled by the user. But, I’m wondering if that shouldn’t be reversed. (Not to imply that they’re “bad.” Just not as essential as they were in the CRT days?).

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