The modulational instability of nonlinear plane waves and the existence of periodic and localized dissipative solitons and waves of the discrete Ginzburg-Landau equation with saturable nonlinearity are investigated. Explicit analytic expressions for periodic solutions with a zero and a finite background are derived and their stability properties investigated by means of direct numerical simulations. We find that while discrete periodic waves and solitons on a zero background are stable under time evolution, they may become modulationally unstable on finite backgrounds. The effects of a linear ramp potential on stable localized dissipative solitons are also briefly discussed.