I consider myself to be a geek. Linux and geeks have a long history together. So, naturally there are a bunch of geeky things available for Linux. In this case, I’m talking about screensavers. I was looking for a screensaver that would show me something really cool about my system.

Most of us go away from our computers. When we do we don’t much care to come back to see our screen just the way we left it. We have been trained that a screensaver should take the place of our work or our play on our monitors. I have been asked numerous times “How do I have screensaver X on my Linux desktop?”

Malware has been found hidden inside an innocuous 'waterfall' screensaver .deb file made available on popular artwork sharing site Gnome-Look.org.

The Eternity Screensaver plays animations of ray-traced scenes which took days or even weeks to generate. The reasoning is that these clips should look more impressive than anything which can be generated on-the-fly.

Finally, about two years after originally hunting for a way to run a screensaver at the console, I have an answer.

I recently got the Compiz Screensaver running on my Ubuntu Linux system. This is a somewhat experimental plugin and so this plugin is not included by default with Compiz.

Lifesaver it’s a screensaver for GNOME that displays recent posts about Ubuntu from Twitter and Identi.ca.

Okay, I lied right from the start with that title. Don’t get into thinking that you can get any real security out of this, as it is equivalent to a locking screensaver. In fact, this is just a screensaver add-on for GNOME. That said, it does prevent the occasional hyperactive child or devious coworker from messing with your desktop when you are away and forget to lock it.

One popular screensaver in Ubuntu is “Floating Ubuntu”, which displays a number of Ubuntu logos floating around the screen.