unknownpleasures(6)

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

💫 unknownpleasures 💫

ok so this is unknownpleasures(6) from the XScreenSaver manual, and bestie, it's literally the Joy Division album cover as a screensaver. buckle up 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

unknownpleasures — a waterfall graph of the signal from pulsar PSR B1919+21. no cap, that's the whole vibe. 🦋

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

unknownpleasures [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual]
[--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--count
number] [--speed number] [--resolution number] [--amplitude number]
[--noise number] [--mask file] [--no-ortho] [--buzz] [--wireframe]
[--fps]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so storytime, because this is genuinely iconic lore. 📖

PSR B1919+21 (also known as CP 1919) was the first pulsar ever discovered — it's a spinning neutron star that emits a periodic, lighthouse-like beacon. literally a space lighthouse. main character energy fr fr ⭐

An illustration of the signal received from it was published in Scientific American in 1971, and later in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy in 1977 — where it was seen by Stephen Morris, the drummer of Joy Division, and was consequently appropriated by Peter Saville for the cover of the band's album "Unknown Pleasures". 💀👑

so yeah. you're running a piece of music history as a screensaver. slay.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

  • --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. iykyk 🎨
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this one is the default, so like, you're already doing it bestie.
  • --root — draw on the root window instead. full desktop takeover, lowkey iconic 🌈
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window. you pick the window, it does its thing.
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 30000 (that's 0.03 seconds, yes i did the math for you 💜).
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2 for twice as fast, 0.5 for half as fast. go zoom 🏃‍♀️
  • --count number — scanlines (vertical resolution). default: 80.
  • --resolution number — horizontal resolution. default: 100.
  • --amplitude number — height of the waves, 0 – 1.0. default: 0.13. tiny waves, big mood 🌊
  • --noise number — how noisy the signal is. 2 for twice as noisy, 0.5 for half as noisy. static girlies rise 🙈
  • --mask file — use the given image file as a clipping mask against the data. a high contrast image of around 256x256 works best. signal peaks appear in the dark areas. 🖤 genuinely obsessed with this one
  • --ortho | --no-ortho — whether to use an orthographic projection.
  • --buzz | --no-buzz — whether each line should seethe with noise. seethe, bestie. seethe. 😤
  • --wireframe | --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid. 🕸️
  • --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen.

🧚 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, they're the supporting cast 🫶

Copyright © 2013-2018 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. (translation: it's free, use it, but nobody's promising it's perfect 💀)

⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

Jamie Zawinski. 🎀

okay that's the whole page, every flag and every fact, nothing skipped. you're welcome 💖

and that's a wrap!! this was unknownpleasures from X Version 11, version 6.15 (30-Mar-2026) — mwah, go make your desktop look like a 1979 album cover ✨🦋💅

📦 where this page comes from