droste(6)

📦
version 6.15 · 2 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, nixpkgs unstable

💜 droste(6) — the XScreenSaver manual, bestie edition 🦋

okay so picture this: it's droste, it lives in the XScreenSaver manual (section 6, screensaver land), and it's literally the prettiest thing. let's get into it ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

droste — a screen saver. that's it. that's the whole vibe. 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

droste [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
       [--root] [--delay number] [--duration seconds] [--speed ratio] [--r1
       ratio] [--r2 ratio] [--fps]

yes bestie, that's a lot of flags, and we're gonna go through every single one. no skipping. 🫶

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Mise en abyme: infinite spiral recursion within images. 🌀

the way that this one just goes deeper and deeper forever?? iconic. it works best with images that have a central circular feature — like, the whole effect is built around that. main character energy for circles. ⭐

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • --visual visual — tells it which visual to use. legal values are either the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. 🎨
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so it's already what you're getting unless you go changing stuff. 🙈
  • --root — draw on the root window instead. lowkey a whole different look. 💅
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 20000 (that's 0.02 seconds). ⏱️
  • --duration number — how long until it loads a new image, in seconds. default: 2 minutes. like, it commits. 👑
  • --speed number — speed of zooming into the image. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. negative values zoom out — yes, it goes both ways bestie. 🔥
  • --r1 number — inner radius of the spiral. default: 0.2. 🌀
  • --r2 number — outer radius of the spiral. default: 0.7. 🌀
  • --fps | --no--fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. for the numbers girlies. 📊

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

  • 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.
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root.

🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

X(1), xscreensaver(1) — go read those too, iykyk. 💖

Copyright © 2023 by Jamie Zawinski. 💜

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 appears 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. 🫶

translation: go wild with it, just keep the copyright notice, and don't come for anybody if it breaks. fr fr. 💀

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Jamie Zawinski. 👑

and that's the whole page bestie, ily, go make some infinite spirals 💜✨🎀

sign-off kiss: this is X Version 11, version 6.15 (30-Mar-2026) — droste(6) out. 🦋💅

📦 where this page comes from