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Comment by qot | Hacker News Reader

Linux isn't even close for normal people's desktop use.

Just recently I tried and failed to simply set up a screensaver that turns my screen black (not off!) to save my display from burn-in. Eventually I just gave up. You can't do this with stock GNOME. I also tried xscreensaver (but the Debian-specific instructions in the man page are out of date) and xfce4-screensaver, both didn't work.

I've been using Debian GNU/Linux since Feb 2016 and consider myself adept but still couldn't figure this very simple task out.

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Even my grandmother who used her first computer late in her seventies knew how to do that on linux.

Please enlighten me. I've sunk hours into this.

To be fair, what you're looking for (black but not off) is probably not something many people would want or care about. But it does demonstrate how (A) inflexible and (B) feature-poor most Linux distros are

I'm really just looking to display a screensaver which _is_ something people want and care about.

All screensaver software that I've seen supports displaying an image / slide show which I will simply set to a black image. Another common feature is just displaying black.

Note: in Windows both of these are quite easy.

What? It really couldn't be simpler: You open settings -> screensaver, choose blank after N minutes and close the settings window. Works.

I have no screensaver options under settings: https://i.imgur.com/WM3xIWL.png

Note, I'm using Debian Sid. Gnome 3.36.2 on Wayland.

Try looking under Power.

Nope, this is quite the opposite of black: https://i.imgur.com/L0O0fNn.png

It also turns my display off, which is not what I want: https://i.imgur.com/z5BIqGj.png

Seems like it's not as simple as @nxbp claims.

Use xautolock with i3lock w/ a black image..

That will still black the display when I'm watching youtube.

https://github.com/caffeine-ng/caffeine-ng

Edit: fyi this wasn’t part of your initial complaint. I don’t use caffeine because I want my screen to predictably lock

"normal people's desktop use"

I’m not sure while you’re so hostile, but I wish you luck on all future endeavours.

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