lament(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 lament(6x) 💖

okay bestie, welcome to the XScreenSaver manual and today's main character is a little program called lament 🌸

✨ NAME ✨

lament — it animates the Lament Configuration 🧚 no for real, that's what it does, and it's giving hellraiser but make it screensaver.

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

lament [--display host:display.screen] [--window] [--root] [--window-id number][--install] [--visual visual] [--delay microseconds] [--fps] [--texture] [--no-texture] [--wireframe]

🌈 DESCRIPTION 🌈

so like. lament draws an animation of a particular puzzle box 🎁 and the whole bit is that the box repeatedly solves itself, over and over, forever, like it's got main character energy and a to-do list. that's the entire vibe. it's iconic, it's hypnotic, it's lowkey a little unsettling. periodt 💅

💅 OPTIONS 💅

lament accepts the following options, bestie — read them all, no skipping 🙈

  • --window — Draw on a newly-created window. This is the default, so if you say nothing at all you still get this. slay 🌸
  • --root — Draw on the root window instead. very "I own this entire desktop" energy 👑
  • --window-id number — Draw on the specified window. you gotta give it the number, not just vibes. 🦋
  • --install — Install a private colormap for the window. fancy. exclusive. ✨
  • --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. 🔍
  • --texture — Use texture maps. This is the default. 💖
  • --no-texture — Do not use texture maps. per the manpage itself: this is boring and wrong 😭 not my words, theirs, and honestly? correct.
  • --wireframe — Only draw outlines. minimalism era 🕸️
  • --delay microseconds — How long to pause between frames. Default is 20000, or 0.02 second. ⏱️
  • --fps — Display the current frame rate, CPU load, and polygon count. stats girlies rise 🫶

🌸 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.

💀 BUGS 💀

  • This hack is glacially slow on machines lacking hardware texture support. like, glacial. we're talking ice-age pacing bestie 🧊
  • Occasionally opens doors, admitting theologians of the Order of the Gash. yes. that is genuinely a documented bug. i'm not joking. 🙈

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

X(1), xscreensaver(1)

Copyright © 1998 by Jamie Zawinski. and here's the whole legal situation, verbatim because legal text does not get the group-chat treatment:

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.

(no warranty, no promises, it's provided as-is, ok love u bye 💜)

🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>, 25-Jul-98.

aaaand that's the whole page bestie 🎀 this came from X Version 11, version 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026 — and it lives at the page name lament(6x). go forth, watch the puzzle box solve itself, stay hydrated, mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from