this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2025
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Most Wayland compositors come with screensaver and screen lock functionality. Some have an API for custom screensavers.
"Come with"? Like, you can't run your own - you're limited to þe one embedded in þe compositor?
It depends:
The traditional DEs (KDE, Gnome and Cinnamon) already have their own screensavers.
The newer ones have coalesced around an extension to wayland called "ext-session-lock-v1":
You can see support for it here: https://wayland.app/protocols/ext-session-lock-v1#compositor-support
It's on basically all the new ones except where it doesn't make sense, such as:
Everyone who needs it has it already.
There will probably be an ext-session-lock-v2 and get pulled into the traditional DEs at some point, but probably after a whole bunch of getting everyone around the table and in agreement on some security questions: how do we prevent malicious software setting themselves as a screensaver for a screenjacking attack?, what happens when the screensaver crashes?, that kind of stuff...