batteredplanet(6)

📦 version 6.15, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💅 batteredplanet(6) — the XScreenSaver manual, but make it cute

okay bestie, so you know how your screensaver is just... there? this one is not just there. it's from the XScreenSaver manual and it's genuinely iconic, no cap. buckle up 🪐

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

batteredplanet [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual]
[--window] [--root] [--delay number] [--speed number] [--scale number]
[--fps]

that's the whole vibe. short, sweet, slay. 🎀

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so picture this: an alien planet full of craters, right? and up in the sky there are other celestial objects just hanging out, being gorgeous, doing their little orbit thing. that's it. that's the screensaver. it's giving main character energy in space 💫

💅 OPTIONS 💅

here's where it gets good. every single flag, listed, because we do not skip details in this house 🫶

  • --visual visual — tells it which visual to use, bestie. legal values are either the name of a visual class or the id number of a specific visual, and that id number can be decimal or hex, iykyk.
  • --window — draws on a newly-created window. and guess what? this is the default. she's the moment. ✨
  • --root — draws on the root window instead. different window, same slay.
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, measured in microseconds. default is 20000, which is literally 0.02 seconds. tiny little pause, no biggie 🦋
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. math is math, and she ate.
  • --scale number — frame buffer resolution. 0.5 means halve the resolution for better performance but lower quality output — so like, faster but blurrier, a tradeoff bestie 😭 — and the default is 1.0, full quality. periodt. 👑
  • --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. yes or no, your call, we support both 💖

🧚 ENVIRONMENT 🧚

the environment variables are also in the group chat, and they matter:

  • DISPLAY — to get the default host and display number. 🌈
  • XENVIRONMENT — to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property. fancy, I know. 👑
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root. only for --root, don't forget, I'm serious 🙈

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

go read these too, they're the friend group:

Copyright © 2020 by Otavio Good.

and now the legal bit, quoted with care because it's important and we do not paraphrase the fine print:

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

tl;dr: free to use, just keep the notice, and no promises that it works. it is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty — that part is not a joke, so don't come for her if something breaks 😭

🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

Otavio Good. that's the whole section. legend behavior. 👑

and that's the page, bestie 💜 — this was X Version 11, release 6.15, dated 30-Mar-2026, and the page itself is the batteredplanet(6) one. love that for us. go stare at a cratered alien planet, you've earned it 🌸🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from