memscroller(6)

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

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

okay so bestie, welcome to memscroller(6), which lives in the XScreenSaver manual family. sit down, hydrate, and let me tell you about the screen saver that literally just... reads its own brain and scrolls it at you ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

memscroller — it scrolls a dump of its own RAM across your screen. yes. that's the whole thing. it's giving "main character reads her own diary out loud" energy 🫶

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

memscroller [--display host:display.screen] [--window] [--root]
[--window-id number][--mono] [--install] [--visual visual] [--font font]
[--delay int] [--mono | -color] [--ram | -random | --filename file]
[--fps]

run it plain, or pile on the flags like they're charm bracelets 💖

⭐ DESCRIPTION ⭐

so the memscroller program scrolls a dump of its own process memory across the screen — and not just in one window, bestie, in three windows at three different rates. three whole windows. different speeds. it's chaos and it's iconic 😭🔥

✨ OPTIONS ✨

memscroller accepts the following options, and we're going through all of them, no skipping, we don't do that here 💅

  • --window — Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default, so if you do nothing, congrats, you get this one 🎀
  • --root — Draw on the root window.
  • --window-id number — Draw on the specified window. you pick, she draws 🫶
  • --install — Install a private colormap for the window.
  • --visual visual — Specify which visual to use. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual.
  • --color — Render each three bytes of memory as R, G, B. This is the default 🌈
  • --mono — Render each byte of memory in shades of green. very matrix, very slay 🍓
  • --ram — Read from the process's address space. This is the default.
  • --random — Instead of reading from memory, generate random numbers. chaos mode activated 💀
  • --filename file — Instead of reading from memory, read from the given file until EOF, then re-open it. If you have permission, /dev/mem is an interesting choice here. (Note that /dev/null won't ever display anything, because it returns EOF without ever returning any data.) — like, gorgeous, it's literally empty, don't @ me 🙈
  • --delay microseconds — How much of a delay should be introduced between steps of the animation. Default 10000.
  • --fps — Display the current frame rate and CPU load. numbers!! we love numbers!! ⭐
heads up bestie: --mono and --color are the same little switch flip (the synopsis literally writes them as --mono | -color), and --ram, --random, and --filename file are the three ways she gets her data. pick your fighter 💜

💜 ENVIRONMENT 💜

the environment variables she reads, and what they're for:

  • 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 🎀

go read these too, bestie, they're the friends of the family:

Copyright © 2004 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 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.

like, that's the whole license, no cap, and it's honestly so generous of him 🫶✨

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 14-Aug-2004.

and that's the tea, bestie 💅 — this page came to you courtesy of X Version 11, version 6.15 dated 30-Mar-2026, so go forth, scroll your own RAM, and stan responsibly 🦋💖

📦 where this page comes from