glcells(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

✨ glcells(6x) ✨

okay bestie, so there's this little XScreenSaver hack called glcells, and it lives in the XScreenSaver manual (yeah, the 6x section, we're fancy here 💅). It's literally little blobs that divide, eat, and die on your screen. Iconic behaviour, fr fr. 🦋

🌸 NAME 🌸

glcells — growing cells graphics hack. that's it, that's the whole vibe. cells. growing. graphics. hack. ✨

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

glcells [--display host:display.screen] [--window] [--root] [--window-id
number][--install] [--visual visual] [--delay num] [--pause num]
[--maxcells num] [--radius num] [--seeds num] [--quality num] [--minfood
num] [--maxfood num] [--divideage num] [--mindist num] [--keepold]
[--wireframe] [--fps]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The glcells program draws cells that divide exponentially, eat, and eventually die. it's giving mitosis but make it screensaver. the way they just keep multiplying?? obsessed. and then they eat (yes, cells eat, we been knew 🍓) and then — tragic — they die. life cycle in a window. main character energy from start to finish. 👑

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

glcells accepts the following options, and bestie you're gonna want to look at all of them because there's a lot of sliders on this thing:

  • --window — Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default. so like, if you don't say anything, this is what you get ✨
  • --root — Draw on the root window. your whole desktop gets the cells. bold.
  • --window-id number — Draw on the specified window. you point, it draws there. very demure.
  • --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.
  • --pause num — Specifies the pause at the end of the animation (that's when all cells are dead or the maximum amount of cells is reached). Unit is in frames, default 20.
  • --maxcells num — Specifies the maximum number of cells on screen. dead cells also count, even if they're invisible — yeah, they're still on the guest list 🙈 Default is 800.
  • --radius num — Specifies the radius of the cells. Default is 40.
  • --seeds num — Specifies the number of cells when the animation starts. Default is 1. one little guy. and then... population explosion 😭
  • --quality num — Specifies subdivision quality of the spheres used to draw the cells, range [0...5]. Default is 3. turn it up for smooth spheres, turn it down for potato mode.
  • --minfood num — Food is ditributed randomly on the screen (Yes, the cells need to eat). This parameter specifies the minimum amount of food per pixel. Default is 5. (and yes, the typo is a deep-fried classic, we respect it 🔥)
  • --maxfood num — Food is ditributed randomly on the screen (Yes, the cells need to eat). This parameter specifies the maximum amount of food per pixel. Default is 20.
  • --divideage num — Specifies the minimum age in frames a cell needs to have before being able to divide. Default is 20. no dividing until you're old enough, baby cell.
  • --mindist num — Specifies the minimum distance between cells. Default 1.4. personal space matters 💅
  • --delay num — How long to pause between frames. Default is 20000, or 0.02 second.
  • --fps — Display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count. numbers go brrr 📊
  • --wireframe — Draw wireframe only. skeleton mode. spooky, ate.
  • --keepold — Dead cells stay on screen. they don't leave. haunting the place. lowkey poetic 🥀

🦋 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) xscreensaver-settings(1), http://www.mtoussaint.de/bits.html

Copyright © 2007 by Matthias Toussaint. 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.

ngl bestie, "as is" means exactly what it says — no warranty, no promises, no cap. 💀

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Matthias Toussaint <glcells@mtoussaint.de>, 17-Jun-2007

okay and that's the whole page 💖 tysm for reading, you're doing amazing. just so you know the receipts: this was X Version 11, package version 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026, and it's the glcells(6x) page through and through. slay, go grow some cells 🦋✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from