quasicrystal(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

💖 quasicrystal(6x) — the XScreenSaver manual but make it make sense 💖

okay so bestie, first things first: this is a page from the XScreenSaver manual, section 6x. It's about a screensaver called quasicrystal. Buckle up, it's giving geometry and it's lowkey gorgeous. 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

quasicrystal — aperiodic plane tilings.

like, tilings that never repeat. no cap. 🔥

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

quasicrystal [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual]
[--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--speed
number] [--count number] [--contrast percent] [--no-wander] [--no-spin]
[--asymmetric] [--fps]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

A quasicrystal is a structure that is ordered but aperiodic. So it's not random, it's not repeating — it's that third thing that makes mathematicians scream and physicists bite their nails. Main character energy fr. 👑

Two-dimensional quasicrystals can be generated by adding a set of planes where x is the sine of y. Different complex aperiodic plane tilings are produced depending on:

  • the period of the component planes,
  • the position of the component planes,
  • the rotation of the component planes,
  • and whether the rotation of the planes is evenly distributed around the circle (the "symmetric" option, above) or random.
okay tiny aside: yes it really says "the 'symmetric' option, above" — go look, the option down in OPTIONS is actually called --asymmetric. The manpage said what it said and we are not touching the lore. 🙈

See also the "RD-Bomb", "CWaves" and "Penrose" screen savers. they're the friend group, you should meet them. 🫶

✨ 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.
  • --root — Draw on the root window.
  • --window-id number — Draw on the specified window.
  • --delay number — Per-frame delay, in microseconds. Default: 30000 (0.03 seconds.).
  • --speed number — Animation speed. 2 for twice as fast, 0.5 for half as fast.
  • --contrast contrast — Contrast. Sort of. Default 30%.
  • --count number — How many planes to use. Default 17.
  • --wander | --no-wander — Whether the planes should displace horizontally and vertically.
  • --spin | --no-spin — Whether the planes should rotate.
  • --asymmetric — Allow each plane to rotate freely instead of being constrained to an even distribution around the circle.
  • --fps | --no-fps — Whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen.

🌈 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 © 2013 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: use it, ship it, sell it, just keep the notice, and if it breaks your vibes that's on you bestie 💀)

🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Jamie Zawinski.

and that's the whole page, bestie — you ate it, you read it, you're basically a quasicrystal scholar now 💜

this was X Version 11, 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026 — mwah, periodt. 💅✨

📦 where this page comes from