{"slug": "xscreensaver", "name": "xscreensaver", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 3.647, "rising": 0.35, "first": "2025-11-02", "latest": "2026-09-21", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 4, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["xscreensaver", "XScreenSaver", "XScreensaver"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796692656, "item_id": 49793291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793291", "by": "RunSet", "date": "2026-09-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "doubles as a functional console", "excerpt": "The Phosphor screensaver module in xscreensaver doubles as a functional console. https://marcelwunderlich.com/using-phosphor-xscreensaver-for-displaying-htop.html", "context": "", "use_case": "Displaying htop on screen", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art (2024)"}, {"id": 755624451, "item_id": 47226528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47226528", "by": "hedora", "date": "2026-03-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "XScreenSaver works (and can lock the screen).", "excerpt": "I do all my gaming and LLM inference on devuan. (That laptop should chew through 30-120B parameter LLMs, depending on how much RAM it has.) I don't have any of the problems mentioned by you or sibling comments, full stop. Up until about a year ago, audio was janky as hell, but then as part of the great de-Poettering, they switched from PulseAudio to PipeWire. I've had zero issues since then. Copy paste works. Login w", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Welcome (back) to Macintosh"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["displaying htop on screen", "screen locking", "screen locker"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49768336", "title": "The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art (2024)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49215786", "title": "Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47224118", "title": "Welcome (back) to Macintosh", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46960675", "title": "I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45922514", "title": "Spectral rendering, part 2: Real-time rendering", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45807052", "title": "Real VT102 Emulation with MAME", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 796692656, "item_id": 49793291, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49793291", "by": "RunSet", "date": "2026-09-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "doubles as a functional console", "excerpt": "The Phosphor screensaver module in xscreensaver doubles as a functional console. https://marcelwunderlich.com/using-phosphor-xscreensaver-for-displaying-htop.html", "context": "", "use_case": "Displaying htop on screen", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art (2024)"}, {"id": 787479201, "item_id": 49217450, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217450", "by": "unqueued", "date": "2026-08-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used bluez and bash to lock xscreensaver using some very minimal bash.", "excerpt": "I used bluez and bash to lock xscreensaver using some very minimal bash. It wasn't my idea I believe people on the Gentoo forums were doing it. But you can just loop over something like `hcitool rssi \"$MAC\"` and project it somewhere, there's a variety of ways. I like using dunstify with the -p option to persist on screen. I think it's really impressive what these agents can do, but you should also consider whether yo", "context": "", "use_case": "screen locking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength"}, {"id": 755624451, "item_id": 47226528, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47226528", "by": "hedora", "date": "2026-03-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "XScreenSaver works (and can lock the screen).", "excerpt": "I do all my gaming and LLM inference on devuan. (That laptop should chew through 30-120B parameter LLMs, depending on how much RAM it has.) I don't have any of the problems mentioned by you or sibling comments, full stop. Up until about a year ago, audio was janky as hell, but then as part of the great de-Poettering, they switched from PulseAudio to PipeWire. I've had zero issues since then. Copy paste works. Login w", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Welcome (back) to Macintosh"}, {"id": 751467408, "item_id": 46966713, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46966713", "by": "HoldOnAMinute", "date": "2026-02-10", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It's this one with bees and a wasp", "excerpt": "It's this one with bees and a wasp https://sources.debian.org/src/xlockmore/4.12-4/modes/swarm.c", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed"}, {"id": 736421072, "item_id": 46026317, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46026317", "by": "jauntywundrkind", "date": "2025-11-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "decades I spent with galaxy as my xscreensaver.", "excerpt": "Not a ton of info on it, but ran into this graphics of a galaxy, all rendered with some form of spectral rendering. Thought it was super cool. https://bsky.app/profile/altunenes.bsky.social/post/3m5z6vr2svk2u Distantly reminds me the decades I spent with galaxy as my xscreensaver. https://manpages.debian.org/jessie/xscreensaver-data/galaxy.6x.en.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Spectral rendering, part 2: Real-time rendering"}, {"id": 734163617, "item_id": 45885226, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45885226", "by": "sprash", "date": "2025-11-11", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "A full terminal emulator including firmware and 8080 emulation but with small trivial GL shaders that can be disabled exists here: https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/terminal-simulator", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Real VT102 Emulation with MAME"}, {"id": 732709680, "item_id": 45794355, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45794355", "by": "justin66", "date": "2025-11-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "It doesn\u2019t lock the screen properly under Wayland. There\u2019s an abyss of complaining about Wayland on jwz\u2019s blog. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/07/xscreensaver-wayland-and-locking/", "context": "", "use_case": "Screen locker", "switched_from": "", "story": "X.org Security Advisory: multiple security issues X.Org X server and Xwayland"}]}