The developers of the Linux Mint distribution recently announced their plans to introduce a new screen saver for the Cinnamon desktop environment in the upcoming release of Linux Mint. Currently, the existing screensaver uses GTK, only supports X11, and relies on this protocol to render on top of the Cinnamon window manager to hide existing windows.
The new screensaver, however, will have support for both Wayland and X11, utilizing rendering by the Cinnamon window manager to cover windows. This updated approach will enable the implementation of Wayland support, incorporate animation effects when transitioning to screen lock, and maintain a consistent design by utilizing a single toolkit.
Furthermore, the developers are contemplating a potential shift to a longer preparation cycle for Linux Mint releases as opposed to the current biannual schedule. While frequent releases are beneficial for gathering user feedback and addressing bugs following updates, the time-consuming nature of preparing a release can restrict development opportunities. The team acknowledges that more time is allocated towards testing, bug fixing, and release preparation than actual development.