universeball(6)

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

✨ universeball(6) ✨

okay so bestie, this is a page from the XScreenSaver manual — welcome to universeball, it's giving cosmic main character energy 🪐💫

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

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

🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

A mysterious orb is surrounded by clouds.

that's it. that's the whole vibe. a mystery orb. clouds. iconic. no cap. 🫧👑

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --visual visual — pick which visual to use, bestie. Legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. your choice, slay 🎨
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so if you do nothing you already get this ✨
  • --root — draw on the root window instead. go big, go desktop 🖥️
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 20000 (0.02 seconds). so tiny, so precise ⏱️
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. do the math, it literally works like that 🏃‍♀️💨
  • --scale number — resolution. range is 0.1 - 1.0. default: 1.0. crank it down if your machine is being dramatic 😭
  • --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. --no-fps for the chill no-numbers aesthetic 🌸

🦋 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.
these are the little background besties that make everything work without you even noticing. respect them 💜

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

X(1), xscreensaver(1), https://www.shadertoy.com/view/WcGcWV

Copyright © 2025 by Matt Vianueva.

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.

fr fr, it's provided "as is" — no promises, no guarantees, just vibes and a mysterious orb 🙈

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Matt Vianueva <diatribes@gmail.com>.

🌸💖 and that's the whole page!! brought to you by X Version 11, version 6.15, dated 30-Mar-2026 — go forth and safeguard your screen, bestie, the orb is counting on you 🫶✨

📦 where this page comes from