hydrostat(6)

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

💖 hydrostat — XScreenSaver manual, bestie edition 💖

Okay so picture this: a squishy wiggly squid (or jellyfish, dealer's choice ✨) with a whole lotta tentacles, just vibing on your screen. That's hydrostat(6) and honestly? She's iconic. 🦑💅

🌊 SYNOPSIS 🌊

hydrostat [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
          [--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--speed number]
          [--count number] [--head-radius number] [--tentacles number]
          [--thickness number] [--length number] [--gravity number]
          [--current number] [--friction number] [--no-pulse] [--wireframe]
          [--fps]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Wiggly squid or jellyfish with many tentacles. That's the whole vibe. 🎀

But okay, science moment — a muscular hydrostat is a biological structure used to move its host about, and it's literally just muscles with no skeletal support. No bones, no problem. It does its hydraulic movement without fluid in a separate compartment, which is what you'd get with a hydrostatic skeleton. So she's built different, fr fr. 🫶

🐙 OPTIONS 🐙

  • --visual visual — pick which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. Slay your way. ✨
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. This is the default, bestie.
  • --root — draw on the root window. Main character energy.
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window. Very specific of you, love that.
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 20000 (that's 0.02 seconds, ngl).
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. Zoom zoom. 💨
  • --count number — number of squid. 1 - 100. Default: 10. A whole squad 🌈
  • --head-radius number — head size. 10 - 100. Default: 60. Big brain moment.
  • --tentacles number — number of tentacles. 3 - 100. Default: 40. The way she has so many 😭💜
  • --thickness number — thickness of tentacles. 3 - 40. Default: 18.
  • --length number — length of tentacles. 10 - 150. Default: 70. Long. Iconic.
  • --gravity number — strength of gravity. 0 - 10.0. Default: 0.5. Down she goes 🍓
  • --current number — strength of current. 0.0 - 10.0. Default: 0.25. The water's moving, so is she.
  • --friction number — coefficient of friction. 0.0 - 0.1. Default: 0.02. Lowkey slippery.
  • --pulse | --no-pulse — whether the squid should pulse. Default true. Yes queen, get that heartbeat 💓
  • --wireframe | --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid. Serving structure, honestly.
  • --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. Vibe check, in numbers. 🔥

🌸 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)

Copyright © 2016 by Justin Windle and 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 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. No cap, that's the whole legal bit 💀

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Justin Windle and Jamie Zawinski. Kings. 👑

Bestie, this page shipped with X Version 11, version 6.15, dated 30-Mar-2026 — write that down so you don't forget, mwah 🫶💖✨
📦 where this page comes from