xscreensaver
Fewer than 5 people recommend it so far, so there's no written verdict. Here is what commenters said.
3recommend
0warn against
Nov 2, 2025first mention
Sep 21, 2026latest mention
Why people recommend it
“doubles as a functional console”
“XScreenSaver works (and can lock the screen).”
Caveats and dissent
No one in these comments warned against it.
Threads where it came up
- The Effect of CRTs on Pixel Art (2024) 1 mention
- Lost my phone at the office. Claude suggested tracking Bluetooth signal strength 1 mention
- Welcome (back) to Macintosh 1 mention
- I started programming when I was 7. I'm 50 now and the thing I loved has changed 1 mention
- Spectral rendering, part 2: Real-time rendering 1 mention
- Real VT102 Emulation with MAME 1 mention
Also written as XScreenSaver, XScreensaver. Data: xscreensaver.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 7
“doubles as a functional console”
“I used bluez and bash to lock xscreensaver using some very minimal bash.”
“XScreenSaver works (and can lock the screen).”
“It's this one with bees and a wasp”
“decades I spent with galaxy as my xscreensaver.”
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
It doesn’t lock the screen properly under Wayland. There’s an abyss of complaining about Wayland on jwz’s blog. https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/07/xscreensaver-wayland-and-locking/