crackberg(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

✨ crackberg(6x) — the XScreenSaver manual, but make it a vibe ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to crackberg, a screensaver from the XScreenSaver manual family 💖 it's a little program that flies you through some height fields and lets you lose your way in them, and also there's candy 🍓 no cap.

🌈 NAME 🌈

crackberg — lose your way wandering some height fields, and enjoy candy. that's it. that's the whole job. iconic honestly 👑

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

crackberg [--root] [--window-id number] [--window] [--install]
[--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window-id id]
[--delay usecs] [--fps] [--crack] [--lit] [--boring] [--letterbox]
[--flat] [--wire] [--nowater] [--visibility float] [--color string]
[--nsubdivs integer]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so basically: it flies through height maps, and if you want, it also animates the instantiation and destruction of generated tiles. by default the tiles "grow" into place — like, their height gradually gets increased up to the correct value. glow-up behavior fr fr ✨

when you're in windowed mode, you get these key controls and they're lowkey the main character:

  • left, right — turn left and right.
  • a, w, s, d — move left, forwards, backwards, and to the right, respectively.
  • 1, 2 — decrease and increase manual speed, respectively.
  • Spacebar — return to automatic control.

💅 OPTIONS 💅

crackberg accepts the following options, and yes we're doing ALL of them:

  • --root — draw on the root window. root window energy 🌸
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window.
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so if you do nothing, this is what you get 🫶
  • --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.
  • --delay microseconds — delay between frames; default 20000 (that's 1/50th of a second, iykyk).
  • --fps — display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count. numbers, on your screen, live 📊
  • --crack — use all possible methods to animate tile instantiation. go absolutely feral with it.
  • --boring — do not animate instantiation at all; use this to get standard landscape generator behavior. it's giving beige. it's giving default. but sometimes that's the vibe 🙈
  • --letterbox — drawable window region has a 16:9 aspect ratio, regardless of actual window size. cinematic, no notes 🎬
  • --lit — enable lighting. shine bright like a diamond ✨
  • --flat — flat shading (OpenGL will use one color per primitive, rather than interpolating betwixt vertices). betwixt!! love that word.
  • --wire — wireframe. skeleton mode 💀
  • --nowater — do not display 'water' (forces negative values to zero, and selects a different coloring method). dehydrated era 🏜️
  • --visibility float — value in range [0.2,1.0] (default 0.6) specifying proportion of viewable XY plane which is to be drawn upon.
  • --color string — selects color scheme. use with no or bogus argument for current list. yes, feeding it nonsense is a feature 👑
  • --nsubdivs integer — number of times to recursively subdivide each triangular tile. each increment increases total triangles by a factor of 4; for instance the default setting 4 results in 256 triangles per tile. math ate that one up 🔥

🌸 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 © 2005 by Matus Telgarsky. 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. (legal bestie said what she said 💜)

🧚 AUTHOR 🧚

Matus Telgarsky <catachresis@cmu.edu>, 2005.

and that's a wrap on the whole thing 💖 this page ships with X Version 11, and its build is 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026. stan a messy little landscape generator. periodt 🎀

📦 where this page comes from