deco(6x)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so this is deco, from the XScreenSaver manual, section 6x — and what it does is draw tacky 70s basement wall panelling</p>. yes. that's the whole job. 💅

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

deco [--display host:display.screen] [--foreground color] [--background
color] [--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--mono] [--install]
[--visual visual] [--delay seconds] [--max-depth int] [--min-width int]
[--min-height int] [--line-width yIint] [--smooth-colors]
[--golden-ratio] [--mondrian] [--fps]

(and yes bestie, that yIint is literally what it says in the source. not me fixing it. we do not touch it. 🙈)

---

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so deco subdivides and colors rectangles randomly. that's it, that's the vibe. 🎨 the result looks kind of like Brady-Bunch-era rec-room wall paneling. iconic. terrifying. both.

and because the universe is funny, there's a quote from Raven about it, and I am not paraphrasing this because it's perfect:

"This screensaver is ugly enough to peel paint."

😭😭😭

but ALSO — plot twist — it can also produce more aesthetically pleasing displays via the options. so you can have the cursed version or the pretty version. your call, main character. 👑

---

✨ OPTIONS ✨

deco accepts the following options:

• --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so if you do nothing, congrats, you already did it. ✨
• --root — draw on the root window. going straight onto your desktop background, no window of its own. bold. 🦋
• --window-id number — draw on the specified window. you point, it paints. 🎀
• --mono — if you're on a color display, it just... pretends you're on a monochrome display. pretend era. 👑
• --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 seconds — how long to wait before starting over. default 5 seconds.
• --max-depth integer — how deep to subdivide. default 12.
• --min-width integer — (no description of its own in the original, bestie, it's sharing with the next one ⬇️)
• --min-height integer — the size of the smallest rectangle to draw. default 20x20. 🍓
• --line-width integer — width of lines drawn between rectangles. default zero (minimal width).
• --smooth-colors
• --no-smooth-colors — whether to use a smooth color palette instead of a random one. less jarring. default False.
• --golden-ratio
• --no-golden-ratio — whether to subdivide rectangles using the golden ratio instead of 1/2. this ratio is supposed to be more aesthetically pleasing. default false. (the math girlies ate 💅)
• --mondrian
• --no-mondrian — whether to imitiate style of some famous paintings by Piet Mondrian. overrides line-width and colormap options. default false. 🎨
• --fps — display the current frame rate and CPU load.

---

✨ 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, fr fr. 📚✨

---

✨ COPYRIGHT ✨

Copyright © 1997 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.

(legal text stays legal text, bestie — I'm not vibing my way through a license 🫶)

---

✨ AUTHOR ✨

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 26-Apr-97, based on code by Michael D. Bayne <mdb@go2net.com>. Golden ratio and Mondrian settings by Lars Huttar. 🌸

---

and that's the whole page!! x Version 11, 6.17-1.fc44 (13-Oct-2026) — that's the build stamp and the date, mwah, go panel some walls 💖🎀✨