sane-break
NOTE: Sane Break works best with X11 and KDE Wayland. It works on GNOME but less optimal. It also works on other Wayland compositors with wlr layer shell and idle notify protocols support. The Flatpak version does not support locking screen or pausing breaks when specific programs are running.
Sane Break is a cross-platform break reminder designed to help you take meaningful breaks without disrupting your workflow. It allows you to take ownership of when to stop and break, and aims to strike a balance between respecting your workflow and ensuring you take the breaks you need. Specifically, Sane Break uses a two-phase system:
- Phase 1: A small, unobtrusive reminder that encourages you to find a good stopping point.
- Phase 2: The reminder grows to full screen during the actual break.
Transition to phase 2 happens when you stop working on your computer, or when you ignore the reminder and keep working for too long.
Compatibility: Uses the C library of the system (may need glibc 2.34 or later)
GitHub Download sane-break Website sane-break Bugtracker
Usage
sane-break is available as an AppImage which means "one app = one file", which you can download and run on your Linux system while you don't need a package manager and nothing gets changed in your system. Awesome!
AppImages are single-file applications that run on most Linux distributions. Download an application, make it executable, and run! No need to install. No system libraries or system preferences are altered. Most AppImages run on recent versions of Arch Linux, CentOS, Debian, Fedora, openSUSE, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and other common desktop distributions.
This AppImage uses the C library of the system and may need glibc 2.34 or later. It does not run on distributions that use a different C library (such as musl on Alpine Linux) or an older glibc.
Running sane-break on Linux without installation
Unlike other applications, AppImages do not need to be installed before they can be used. However, they need to be marked as executable before they can be run. This is a Linux security feature.Beware! AppImages are usually not verified by others. Follow these instructions only if you trust the developer of the software. Use at your own risk!
Download the sane-break AppImage and make it executable using your file manager or by entering the following commands in a terminal:
chmod +x ./*.AppImageThen double-click the AppImage in the file manager to open it.
Sandboxing sane-break
If you want to restrict what sane-break can do on your system, you can run the AppImage in a sandbox like Firejail. This is entirely optional and currently needs to be configured by the user.
Updating sane-break
If you would like to update to a new version, simply download the new sane-break AppImage.
Integrating AppImages into the system
If you would like to have the executable bit set automatically, and would like to see sane-break and other AppImages integrated into the system (menus, icons, file type associations, etc.), then you may want to check the optional appimaged daemon.
Note for application authors
Thanks for distributing sane-break in the AppImage format for all common Linux distributions. Great! Here are some ideas on how to make it even better.
Pro Tips for further enhancing the sane-break AppImage
Please consider to add update information to the sane-break AppImage and ship a .zsync file so that it can be updated using AppImageUpdate. Tools like appimagetool and linuxdeployqt can do this for you easily.
Please consider making the sane-break AppImage self-contained, so that it does not depend on the C library of the system and runs on more distributions: ship the C library including its loader (ld-linux-*.so.*) and use it to launch the application, or link statically.
Thanks for shipping AppStream metainfo inside your AppImage. Please open a pull request on https://github.com/AppImage/appimage.github.io/blob/master/data/sane-break if you have changed it and would like to see this page updated accordingly.
If you would like to see a donation link for the application here, please include one in the AppStream data.