Whoa...I just did the same thing, and when I came back, my computer looked like this. A billion years of evolution in the blink of an eye
this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2025
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I have not seen that in... a long time.
You knew when it started because the cooling fans jumped up to jet engine levels.
Like the civilisation that grew inside a train station locker
All hail J!
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My computer started playing Doom by itself.
This is still mesmerizing.
I always found it stressful because there's no way out. Just endless wandering.
Why did you watch it that long?!
Back before I discovered Linux, I still had a bunch of computers in my room. Since I hadn't yet discovered Linux, I had a bunch of Windows computers. Therefore I saw a lot of classic screensavers all the time (and also my room was very warm).
Moreso than that, though, one need only understand the concept of a screensaver and maybe watch a few minutes of this to intuit that there is no end and never will be.
I liked the pipe one. It cleaned itself up periodically and, since there was no character on display - either via first person perspective or seeing someone build pipes - no one was desperate or trapped. However, the starfield was always my favorite. It spoke of adventure. The idea of having an occupiable spaceship was enough of an idea of home to not stress me out.
I also had one that came on the Duke Nukem 3d CD (though it didn't come on mine, I had to email and ask). It depicted Duke's enemies rather messily falling from the sky until they filled up the screen. When I learned that was a thing I was of the perfect age to appreciate it.
Nowadays I just use the power management settings. No screen saver.
Wolfenstein 3D, please.
That would be cool to build something that actually plays wolf 3d.
Isn’t that Wolfenstein?
Can't be with zero-thickness walls.
Nor the floor and ceiling textures.
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This was back before the Internet was not a big truck, but a series of tubes.
I thought it was a box: 
edit: Better image source.
dude did you get permission to photograph The Internet?
That's why I use flying toasters instead.
I'm team Starfield
Once I could run the matrix screensaver, I never looked back.
Pretty sure that screensaver pack was full of viruses but I was in 5th grade who cares.
The only thing that managed to replace starfield in my heart was Matrix. And even then, someone did a Matrix starfield and all was right with the world. I want a matrix wallpaper now, dammit.
Honestly the thing I miss most about the latest Linux distributions. I understand screensavers aren’t necessary anymore, but they are fun and should still be a thing.
I miss the old windows colored bubbles, where your screen was still visible and the bubbles just moved around on top of everything.
I think it was from 7. In 10 they changed it so there was a black screen with the bubbles. Not nearly as much fun (I do zero secure things on my home computers). They also seemed to churn more, like glass balls, rather than bouncing off each other like they originally did.
I’m not on windows anymore but man I do miss that one.
Pretty sure it was 7. Loved those bubbles.
They are very much still kinda necessary. They prevent burn-in, which is still a possible issue on certain types of displays (like OLEDs).
Then again, even back in the hay day of screensavers you could have simply turned the monitor off and left the PC on. 🤷♂️
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I think only ChromeOS' Exo and KDE's KWin (cheating, since its just the kde screen locker) are the only wayland compositors with screensaving functionality. Which is just a picture slideshow.
Seems like no devs want to reimplement screensavers that are not just pictures.
Eh. I'm fine with the screen just shutting off.
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For the newer people in the crowd: A screen protector is part of the immune system for electronic displays.
We always called them screensavers, but at some point after screensavers were no longer really necessary, people started calling backgrounds screensavers. I don't know why I let it bother me so much.
Then there was a tv show called The Screensavers. That was fun.
before flatscreens, mostly
Even old flatscreens had terrible burnin. Especially plasma, but nobody was using those for computering.
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not to be pedantic or "well ashktually" you....
but, eh.... screen protectors in the 90's were something else.
(Yeah....)
It's just a graphical representation of The Internet (a series of tubes).
IT'S NOT A BIG TRUCK
I miss screen savers sometimes.
They're still there if you want them.
Yeah but my screen never gets to turn off by itself
It's a 30 year old screen saver.
No, a real AGI is like a stoned, delusional artificial psychopath who, without a data center, would be completely stoned.
Time to take your pills and go to bed, Mr.
Any chance getting a link to install this on xfce or kde ?
Probably takes a lot of GPU to run this. You probably need windows 12 or later.
Yeah it runs on Unreal Engine 5, with Nanite, Lumen and shitty TAA.
Should be part of xscreensaver.
Pretty sure the arrogant Mr Zawinski ported it ages ago.
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