Talk:XScreenSaver

"such as Linux"
I put Linux in because there's a passing chance the passing reader will have actually heard of it - it's there as an example of an "open source Unix-like" system. If you still consider this "gratuitous," I'm sure we can discuss the matter - David Gerard 12:25, May 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * What you had before, where you didn't mention names at all, was fine. I think there is a problem in keeping other names out just becuase people "haven't heard of it". Dysprosia 22:26, 18 May 2004 (UTC)


 * The problem I saw was the phrase is meaningless - it was putting in the name with some brand recognition as an example. (I vastly prefer FreeBSD to Linux for my personal use, btw, but think I can tell including an example from including something for advocacy.)


 * The name could be removed, but then the article is made less clear to the reader who doesn't already know what we're talking about. - David Gerard 22:28, May 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * But it still is providing "preferential treatment" of sorts... it's not quite POV but it's not quite neutral either, if you get what I mean. Perhaps we can work out some sort of wording. Dysprosia 22:32, 18 May 2004 (UTC)


 * It's "preferential treatment" only in that Linux is famous in the outside world and FreeBSD, love it as I might, just isn't. (Workplace conversation: "You don't have Windows? You run Leenux or something?" "FreeBSD." "Oh, that's a sort of Leenux, isn't it." These are IT guys!) Saying "like Linux" instead of "open source Unix-like" is a bit GNU/Linux - it rubs BSD advocates up the wrong way, but no-one else really cares, nor, really, should they. I'd love a better way of saying it, though, yes. - David Gerard 23:12, May 18, 2004 (UTC)


 * How about leveraging the fact that some Unix-like systems (going off the Unix-like article), such as Darwin and the Hurd (to my knowledge), do not use XScreenSaver (Darwin, not at least when in tandem with OS X, that is)? Otherwise, I have to think about it a little harder... Dysprosia 23:16, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Some hacks
I added a brief list of some of the XScreensaver hacks (largely at random, I confess). I figure such a list has the potential of hooking casual visitors into the wikipedia - so they come and read about the screensaver, but it links off into the various obscure corners of maths and popular culture that the hacks depict. I'll probably add some more hacks later, and anyone with a better grasp of math than me is more than welcome to add the exotic math hacks that I don't pretend to recognise. -- John Fader 17:04, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Nitpicking
I've had a look at the BSOD screensaver picture over at the German Wikipedia. The screensaver is wrong: The "Guru meditation" never appeared in the "Insert Workbench disk" when you first booted up the Amiga. You had to actually load Workbench, or some other program, to get the chance to see a Guru meditation. &mdash; J I P | Talk 15:17, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As a former Amiga user, I actually saw Guru meditation right on "Insert Disk" image of Amiga ROM. It could happen if you have memory errors or actually a memory resident virus which hooks itself to startup routine. As you may guess, these are horrible reasons for guru meditation so I think that is why as the concept of screensaver is showing some horrible situations for fun.

Full list
Here is the full list from 5.02: • Anemone -

• Anemotaxis -

• Ant -

• AntInspect -

• AntMaze -

• AntSpotlight -

• Apollonian -

• Apple2 -

• Atlantis -

• Attraction -

• Atunnel -

• Barcode -

• Blaster -

• BlinkBox -

• BlitSpin -

• BlockTube -

• Boing -

• Bouboule -

• BouncingCow -

• Boxed -

• BoxFit -

• Braid -

• BSOD -

• Bubble3D -

• Bubbles -

• Bumps -

• Cage -

• Carousel -

• CCurve -

• Celtic -

• Circuit -

• CloudLife -

• Compass -

• Coral -

• Crackberg -

• Critical -

• Crystal -

• Cube21 -

• Cubenetic -

• CubeStorm -

• Cynosure -

• DangerBall -

• DecayScreen -

• Deco -

• Deluxe -

• Demon -

• Discrete -

• Distort -

• DNAlogo -

• Drift -

• Endgame -

• Engine -

• Epicycle -

• Eruption -

• Euler2D -

• Extrusion -

• FadePlot -

• Fiberlamp -

• Fireworkx -

• Flag -

• Flame -

• FlipFlop -

• FlipScreen3D -

• FlipText -

• Flow -

• FluidBalls -

• FlyingToasters -

• FontGlide -

• Forest -

• FuzzyFlakes -

• Galaxy -

• Gears -

• GFlux -

• GLBlur -

• Gleidescope -

• GLForestFire -

• GLHanoi -

• GLKnots -

• GLMatrix -

• GLPlanet -

• GLSchool -

• GLSlideshow -

• GLSnake -

• GLText -

• Goop -

• Grav -

• Greynetic -

• Halftone -

• Halo -

• Helix -

• Hopalong -

• HyperBall -

• HyperCube -

• HyperTorus -

• IFS -

• IMSMap -

• Interaggregate -

• Interference -

• Intermomentary -

• JigglyPuff -

• Jigsaw -

• Juggle -

• Juggler3D -

• Julia -

• Kaleidescope -

• Klein -

• Kumppa -

• Lament -

• Laser -

• Lavalite -

• Lightning -

• Lisa -

• Lissie -

• LMorph -

• Loop -

• Maze -

• MemScroller -

• Menger -

• MetaBalls -

• MirrorBlob -

• Mismunch -

• Moebius -

• Moire -

• Moire2 -

• Molecule -

• Morph3D -

• Mountain -

• Munch -

• NerveRot -

• Noof -

• NoseGuy -

• Pacman -

• Pedal -

• Penetrate -

• Penrose -

• Petri -

• Phosphor -

• Piecewise -

• Pinion -

• Pipes -

• Polyhedra -

• Polyominoes -

• Polytopes -

• Pong -

• PopSquares -

• Providence -

• Pulsar -

• Pyro -

• Qix -

• Queens -

• RDbomb -

• Ripples -

• Rocks -

• Rorschach -

• Rotor -

• RotZoomer -

• Rubik -

• SBalls -

• ShadeBobs -

• Sierpinski -

• Sierpinski3D -

• SlideScreen -

• Slip -

• Sonar -

• SpeedMine -

• Sphere -

• Spheremonics -

• Spiral -

• Spotlight -

• Sproingies -

• Squiral -

• Stairs -

• Starfish -

• StarWars -

• StonerView -

• Strange -

• Substrate -

• Superquadrics -

• Swirl -

• T3D -

• Tangram -

• Thornbird -

• TimeTunnel -

• TopBlock -

• Triangle -

• Truchet -

• Twang -

• Vermiculate -

• Vines -

• Wander -

• WebCollage -

• WhirlWindWarp -

• Whirlygig -

• Worm -

• Wormhole -

• XAnalogTV -

• XFlame -

• XJack -

• XLyap -

• XMatrix -

• XRaySwarm -

• XSpirograph -

• Zoom - Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I put it in columns to save space, hoping you don't mind. —Tamfang (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I do mind. What are you going to do about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.131.255.44 (talk) 08:45, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Stamp my little feet and pout. —Tamfang (talk) 01:56, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

wscreensaver (xscreensaver on Wayland)
I created a Wiki account a long while back, the reason for which I cannot recall but I've never used it and as such, wouldn't know the first thing about how to properly edit an established Wiki entry. Certainly not one on the scale concerning the world's most popularly used screensaver program. That said, I feel it should perhaps be modified to include the fact that, in spite of all suggestions to the contrary, many of which come directly from Mr. Screensaver himself, i.e., the man, the myth, the legend; Jamie Zawinski, xscreensaver can in fact "run" on OS environments under Wayland compositor/window manager via what I can only assume based on the code author's own words (below) is something of a hack itself (a hack to run xscreensaver hacks on a hackjob of a compositor. JK, of course. I view Wayland as a necessary evil and one that perhaps one day will even be considered visionary, but it's buggy as all get out at present), a piece of experimental software called wscreensaver. I put "run" in quotes because as you can see from wscreensaver author Manuel Stoeckl's README.md for wscreensaver below, it only runs some of the xscreensaver hacks (emphasis is my own):

Regardless of all the caveats and hacky approach, bottom line is that it works. As I write this, Photopile is cycling on my quad-monitor display setup/"video wall" a few feet away from me (Im using my tablet) on a machine running Arch (btw 😏🫣😘) which itself is running KDE Plasma 6, and bless their hearts but they elected to go all in with Wayland for this release. I guess the bullet was eventually going to need biting but man, Plasma 6 crashes more often than it doesn't and at any rate, is the most prone to do so of any release I can recall.

Anyway, fortunately for me the same can be said (that it works, that is) of all of my favorite xscreensaver hacks, but given what little I know about Wayland and my experience with it to date, I don't doubt Stoeckl's words of warning (or Zawinkski's apprehension about the premise on the whole, for that matter) one iota. I leave it up to whomever maintains this Wiki entry to decide if this warrants inclusion or not, but I felt it was at least worth bringing up for their consideration. In my view, it warrants at least a passing mention given the popularity of xscreensaver combined with the fact that Wayland is replacing X and will eventually be at least as ubiqitous.

Thanks for your time and sorry for my long-windedness. It's a whole thing I wrestle with daily. I suspect a yet to be diagnosed case of OCD or something in that ballpark

PS - do note that despite calling it "a work in progress," he also specifically states he's not actively maintaining it and has no intention of getting any hacks working that do not work currently. So, sadly if your favorite hacks don't work under Wayland, I wouldn't hold my breath. If you're a proficient programmer, however, you may have a starting point in wscreensaver 😃

PPS - you must run wscreensaver at least once per session if you want to run xscreensaver hacks within that session. From there, xscreensaver-command becomes fully operational (within the confines of the previously mentioned limitations, of course). A GUI/xscreensaver-demo is not possible, but if you still have X11 on your machine, you could log in under X, make whatever changes you want using the GUI, then log back in under Wayland and you should be golden --BoognishMANG (talk) 01:19, 27 April 2024 (UTC)