GNOME or KDE Everything Is Broken

22. I'm running GNOME or KDE, and everything's broken! What's wrong? Probably you are not running XScreenSaver at all, but but are running "gnome-screensaver" or "kscreensaver" instead. You should stop. XScreenSaver is secure, stable, and mature; whereas gnome-screensaver is bug-ridden, unreliable, and an ongoing security disaster (for all the reasons outlined in the On Toolkits page). Gnome-screensaver was created in 2005 by people who thought it was a better idea to rewrite all of XScreenSaver from scratch instead of sending me patches for the changes they desired in XScreenSaver itself. In 2011 or so, "gnome-screensaver" was forked and renamed as both "mate-screensaver" and "cinnamon-screensaver", re-arranging the deck chairs while fixing none of their fundamental design problems. Then in 2013, Ubuntu Unity re-wrote the screen saver engine from scratch again, introducing numerous security holes that would be hilarious if they weren't so sad. The only way to securely lock your screen under X11 is to turn off gnome-screensaver, mate-screensaver, cinnamon-screensaver, etc. and use XScreenSaver instead. How you go about doing this is explained in the "Installing on GNOME" section of the XScreenSaver manual. Remember: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. Four times is Official GNOME Policy.

На скриншоте страницы FAQ XScreenSaver утверждается, что GNOME/KDE и связанные с ними хранители экрана ненадёжны и небезопасны, а пользователю следует отключить их и использовать XScreenSaver. Шутка — это саркастическая критика повторяющихся проблем и язвительная формулировка «Official GNOME Policy», которую отправляют как реакцию на плохой дизайн, баги или хронические ошибки разработчиков. EN: A screenshot of the XScreenSaver FAQ claims that GNOME/KDE and related screen savers are unreliable and insecure, and that users should disable them and use XScreenSaver instead. The joke is the sarcastic criticism of recurring problems, culminating in the phrase “Official GNOME Policy,” which is shared as a reaction to bad design, bugs, or chronic developer mistakes.

• @gentoomemes / 18268 2025-08-17