Recently in the Plasma mailing list, KDE developers have discussed a new screen-locking implementation that could be added to the upcoming 4.8 release of the KDE Workspaces. The first reason to do so was to solve some security constraints of the existing implementation. As an added bonus, screen locking should be also more aestetically pleasing.
There is however a trade-off: such implementation would mean that screensavers that rely on X (also called X screensavers) would not be compatible. The current plan is to have a fallback mechanism if a user has a screen saver configured, and remove the support for X scrensavers entirely by 4.9. It is the intention of the developers to ultimately provide a way to make screensavers with QtQuick (QML) and in a way that they could be shared via GHNS (e.g., places like kde-look.org).
That said, this looks like a large change because existing functionality will change or be removed. Hence, to quote KWin maintainer’s Martin Graesslin,
We are not sure how our users would react if we remove the X screen savers and replace them by a new solution. We would like you to contribute and share your opinion. Tell us why you need screen savers and how you would think about if the currently used screen saver could no longer be used.
And how to gather your opinion? Through a poll. A poll has been opened in the KDE Community Forums by Martin himself to gather opinions on this upcoming change. Please jump in and let the developers know what you think!
Am I to assume the security issues cannot be solved at the X level?
@Dennis That question should be turned to the developers: there was a long thread on the plasma-devel mailing list and I admit I didn’t delve into the technicalities too much.
Do it. I’d rather be without the x screensaver than a security issue. And if you can make the thing more pleasant, it is a win-win situation.
People still use those fugly old, x screensavers? Wow.
I would say: remove them.
I don’t, personally, know anyone who uses a screensaver. I have my screen set to just turn itself off and when I am going away for more than a couple of minutes I just put it to sleep.
I honestly don’t see any good reason to use screensavers anymore
Well, I use the slideshow screensaver, which is actually quite nice. Its an easy way to show off our family pictures, and it has very nice features (transitions, can search in folder heirarchies, etc). Not sure if that is an “x” implementation or what, but I would imagine that there would be a new version if it is. So, I say go ahead.
When I lock my machine it goes to a black screen. When I look around my office, a mix of Linux, Windows, and Macs no one uses a screensaver. So I think you can drop X screensavers and no one would notice or care.
Same here – not using screensavers at all..
What is a screensaver? :-)
For those of us that use screensavers; I think it’s a good idea to make the screensavers non-dependent to X11 seeing that Wayland is coming to play. It should be compatible to both to fit the users’ preference.
Since I do not own a user account (and wouldn’t like to add another one to the existing several), I will leave my opinion here…(hope you don’t mind).
The surest solution would be to remake those screensavers. So, they would actually be KDE-type screensavers, not X-types.
It’s just an idea; I don’t know how much work would that mean.