winduprobot(6)

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

💖 winduprobot — the little robot swarm screensaver 💖

okay so bestie, picture this: you're in the XScreenSaver manual (section 6, screensaver land, iykyk) and there's this absolute icon of a program called winduprobot. yes. wind-up robots. on your screen. keep reading, it gets better 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

winduprobot [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
[--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--count number] [--speed
ratio] [--size ratio] [--opacity ratio] [--talk ratio] [--no-texture]
[--no-fade] [--fps]

that's the whole vibe right there. no cap. 🌸

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

A swarm of wind-up toy robots wander around the table-top, bumping into each other. 🫶 literally just little guys vibing and clipping into each other, it's so cute.

Each robot contains a mechanically accurate gear system inside — and the way that you get to SEE it is: the robot's shell occasionally fades to transparency. 👀✨ mechanically accurate!! the gears are real!! that's not me hyping it up, that's the manpage, bestie.

💅 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. 💖
  • --window — Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default. (main character window energy ✨)
  • --root — Draw on the root window.
  • --window-id number — Draw on the specified window. 🪟
  • --delay number — Per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 20000 (0.02 seconds). yes, microseconds, she's precise like that ⏱️
  • --count number — Number of robots. 1 - 100. Default: 25. that's twenty-five little guys fr fr 🤖🤖🤖
  • --speed ratio — Animation speed. 2.0 means twice as fast, 0.5 means half as fast. zoom zoom 🏃‍♀️
  • --size ratio — Robot size. 2.0 means twice as big, 0.5 means half as big. big robot rights 🌈
  • --opacity ratio — Robot skin transparency. 0.0 - 1.0. Default: 1.0. 🙈
  • --talk ratio — How often to occasionally pop up a word bubble with random text in it. 0.0 means never. 1.0 means often. they're talking!! they have things to say!! 💬💀
  • --texture | --no-texture — Whether the robot's surface should be reflective chrome. ooooh shiny 🪞✨
  • --fade | --no-fade — Whether to sometimes fade the robot's opacity to show the inner mechanism. the gears!!! the GEARS!!! 🔥
  • --fps | --no-fps — Whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. numbers go brrr 📊

🌸 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.

the env vars are doing the behind-the-scenes work, lowkey the real MVPs 🧚💜

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

X(1), xscreensaver(1) xscreensaver-text(6)

go read those too, bestie, they're the whole ecosystem 🦋

Copyright © 2014 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 to use, just keep the copyright notice, and nobody's promising it'll be perfect 💅)

🍓 AUTHOR 🍓

Jamie Zawinski.

💖 okay that's the whole page!! X Version 11, version 6.15 (30-Mar-2026) — winduprobot(6), written up with love by your favorite unix bestie. go run it, watch the little dudes bump into each other, and think of me. periodt. 🎀✨🫶
📦 where this page comes from