unknownpleasures(6x)

📦
version 6.17 · 10 versions
, in fedora 44

✨ unknownpleasures ✨

okay bestie, welcome to unknownpleasures — it's an XScreenSaver hack (that's the 6x manual, iykyk) and it draws a waterfall graph of the signal from pulsar PSR B1919+21. yes. the actual pulsar. the Joy Division cover one. we're doing astronomy AND album art in one screensaver, no cap 💖

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

unknownpleasures [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual]
[--window] [--root] [--window-id number] [--delay number] [--count
number] [--speed number] [--resolution number] [--amplitude number]
[--noise number] [--mask file] [--no-ortho] [--buzz] [--wireframe]
[--fps]

that's the whole thing. type it, love it, slay 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. storytime. sit down.

PSR B1919+21 (also known as CP 1919) was the first pulsar ever discovered — like, a spinning neutron star emitting a periodic lighthouse-like beacon, which is objectively iconic behavior. an illustration of the signal received from it was published in Scientific American in 1971, and then later in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy in 1977.

and WHO saw it there? Stephen Morris. the drummer of Joy Division. 👑

and then Peter Saville appropriated it for the cover of the band's album "Unknown Pleasures".

so every time you run this, you're lowkey rendering a neutron star that accidentally became one of the most famous album covers of all time. main character energy from a dead star, fr fr 🌟

💜 OPTIONS 💜

  • --visual visual — pick which visual to use. legal values are the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of a specific visual. yes hex counts, we support your choices 🎀
  • --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, bestie. it's giving "I just made a window for you" ✨
  • --root — draw on the root window. going full background wallpaper mode.
  • --window-id number — draw on the specified window. you point, it paints 🫶
  • --delay number — per-frame delay, in microseconds. default: 30000 (that's 0.03 seconds). so smol. so fast.
  • --speed number — animation speed. 2 for twice as fast, 0.5 for half as fast. do it for the plot 🏃‍♀️
  • --count number — scanlines (vertical resolution). default: 80.
  • --resolution number — horizontal resolution. default: 100. (yes the original calls it "Horizontal Resolution" with a capital R, we respect it)
  • --amplitude number — height of the waves, 0 - 1.0. default: 0.13. big waves, small waves, your call 🌊
  • --noise number — how noisy the signal is. 2 for twice as noisy, 0.5 for half as noisy. crunchy static ASMR 📻
  • --mask file — use the given image file as a clipping mask against the data. a high contrast image of around 256x256 works best. signal peaks appear in the dark areas. okay so this one's cute: your picture literally shapes where the signal shows up 💖
  • --ortho | --no-ortho — whether to use an orthographic projection. 📐
  • --buzz | --no-buzz — whether each line should seethe with noise. "seethe" is the word they chose and honestly? correct. 🐝
  • --wireframe | --no-wireframe — render in wireframe instead of solid. skeleton mode 🦴
  • --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. for the performance girlies 📊

🌸 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. (it's the override file. the rebel file. 💅)
  • XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root.

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

X(1), xscreensaver(1)

like obviously go read those too, they're the parents of this whole situation ✨

Copyright © 2013-2018 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.

tl;dr: use it, copy it, sell it, go off — just keep the copyright + permission notice in all the copies and in the supporting docs, and know that it comes "as is" with no warranty at all. no promises, no vibe guarantees, ngl 💀

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Jamie Zawinski.

and that's the whole page, bestie. this shipped as X Version 11, 6.17-1.fc44, dated 13-Oct-2026 — go forth and stare at a pulsar, ily 🫶💖✨

📦 where this page comes from