Linux

Can't you just look up your location and enter it your self in redshift config ? I did that a few years ago, and it worked fine.

Also Redshift can be controlled from the cli, so cron would work wonders.

https://www.mankier.com/1/redshift https://scribe.rip/daniels-tech-world/how-to-adjust-screen-brightness-with-the-redshift-cli-de267dda2b8e

I don't have an alternative program to suggest, but there are some workarounds for using redshift.

First, in the config file, you can set the location provider to manual, then specify a lat/lon and it will use that location in its time calculations. I do this on my laptop, and it works well except for when I cross multiple timezones - things are obviously off a bit.

Second, with the caveat that I haven't tried this, it looks like you can also manually set dawn/dusk times in the config, which sounds like what you're after.

See man 1 redshift for more info.

Yeah I've always entered my location manually for both redshift and gammastep (like redshift but for wayland) in a config file because these programs can never seem to auto-detect my location on any of the devices I've tried them on. You don't have to use your real location. Just put yourself in the correct hemisphere and continent and it'll probably be ok. If putting a location in the same approximate location as your country in a local text file is too much of a privacy concern to you, then so is setting your system's local time to your real timezone.

Am I living in a backwards world where Linux uses the invasive complicated way and Windows uses the private simple way?

I mean, you chose xfce and that's a DE which makes you do everything the hard way anyway.

Both KDE and Gnome have the functionality you're looking for straight out of the box.

If you know how to write scripts in bash, that is an alternative way to trigger night mode/dark themes. You can use curl wttr.in to get your local sunrise/sunset, write a simple IF statement if the time is greater than sunset/sunrise and automate it via cron/systemD.

Alternatively, there are a few options floating around on GitHub iirc

I guess this may be a good feedback for Redshift.

Am I living in a backwards world where Linux uses the invasive complicated way and Windows uses the private simple way?

No. Not at all. And judging by this thread, setting the location in the config file wasn't difficult to figure out for most people.

Now I'm on Cinnamon. I am using QRedshift. It works, and I can set the time manually.

Lesson: Don't use redshift-gtk, use QRedshift!

I use Iris, its very simple.

i just have it set to always on. there's no reason you need the bluer light in the day and you get used to it. less eye strain is less eye strain.