Mint still needs decent screensaver options: many like me run it thru new OLED TVs and burn-in is again a risk

[Agarthan]

TL;DR: With OLED displays now commonplace, the assertions made in these fora that modern displays no longer need screensavers are dated at best. Mint's devs baked these views into Mint when they removed workable screensavers from the distro. Please accept the manufacturer's assertions that OLEDS do suffer from burn-in issues and that re-introducing some decent default screensaver options for Mint would be a good thing.


I see it asserted in various posts that "Linux doesn't need a screensaver any more - modern LED/LCD screens don't suffer burn-in like the old displays could."

From old Forum posts, it seems the Linux devs also took adopted that line of thinking, removing any real screensaver capability in Linux Mint a few iterations back.

Unfortunately, this view and the dev direction it encouraged are also now founded on outdated display tech, and it's exposing users like me to renewed risk of burn-in, because once again, our fancy new *OLED* TVs and displays ARE subject to the risk of screen-burn-in.

These new lines of TVs and displays (mine is a 65" OLED C1 by LG) come highly recommended as all-round media and gaming TVs. With a TV that huge in my small townhouse, it's the only display all my devices run through, including my NUC running the latest mainstream release of Linux Mint - my point being, using a different display isn't really an option for me and others in similarly cramped circumstances.

LG and other manufacturers acknowledge OLEDs' renewed risk of burn-in. They even include specific tech in these TVs intended to minimise it, such as pixel-shifting (moving the entire image around by a pixel or two every few seconds). Watching content such as full-screened widescreen movies or YouTube content, "in which black bars appears on the left/right or top/bottom of the screen", are noted as a potential cause of image retention artefacts. For those of us who use Mint as a media PC, this should be at least some concern. Ref: https://www.lg.com/eg_en/tvs/oled-tvs/oled-reliability

With OLED displays not going anywhere, and the renewed risk of burn-in acknowledged by the manufacturers, can we PLEASE get some simple, working screensaver functionality back in the main Linux Mint release line?

Even an effective image slideshow would be great, so long as it also plays sensibly with the power settings [e.g. (0) screensaver defaults to On, and is set to point at the folder of Linux logos the distro comes with (at least initially); (1) the screensaver is set to kick in after, say, 5 mins of no mouse/keyboard activity [but not if any multimedia app is running such as VLC]; (2) after say a total of 15 minutes of no mouse/keyboard activity [as a default] the PC ceases sending an image and/or sends a shutdown signal to the current display].

Note that an option which merely dims the screen is not the best screensaver option for OLEDs - the risk with them is persistent images, so having the same desktop visible (though dimmed) is less desirable than, say, a set of images which are cycled through every few seconds.

Even an option which shows the time as text would be better, as long as it didn't stay in the same spot - moving that text a substantial distance on the screen every few seconds (e.g. to a different corner) would be great, preserving the display while showing the Linux machine is still on.

Note: I've looked up options online and tried to implement a slideshow screensaver myself, despite Linux Mint not currently coming with a nice, working example. The one I ended up using launches a script from the 'At Startup' applet, however the settings I've chosen in that script leave the display hanging for a solid minute before the previous display is visible and the mouse is shown, then it's a solid 2 minutes before I get any interactive control back. I've tried to influence this but can't seem to get control back for a least a few minutes every time the slideshow kicks in.
I eagerly look forward to the day Mint comes with a simple, native screensaver again that's a lot more user-friendly!

Thanks for reading.

[Goz]

Agreed,as screensavers don't work for me in Mint or UbuntuMATE. Screen goes dark and that's it.

[rickNS]

You can install traditional screensaver on Cinnamon, search screensaver in software manager, then install all 3 packages.
I just did in a virtual machine.
Screen shot of Cinnamon with screensaver program

Mint MATE has a screensaver program (installed by default) with a ton of options.
Screen shot of Mint MATE screensaver program.

PS, Ubuntu-MATE does have a working screensaver program, but with limited choices of the actual screensavers.

[Grayfox]

While you can use your own computer the way you like, I wouldn't run an OLED as a PC monitor.
Lets not forget when you're browsing you still have static objects on screen.
Like the task bar, address bar & bookmark bar on web browsers.

So you could be working away on GIMP and the taskbar is still their, while this can be set to autohide, even applications have static icons and button locations.

OLED TVs even suffer from burn in even with TV shows.
The Olympics is a notable one.
Stores set their TVs to the channel that is showing Olympics and in the corner is the TV station watermark, even that watermark is translucent the issue can develop.