XScreenSaver

XScreenSaver is a screen saver for X11. (Duh.)

Written by Jamie Zawinski, famous for things like UNIX Netscape...

XScreenSaver is vastly better than the previous try, xlock, in that in XScreenSaver the different screen savers are separate executables and in order to add a screensaver to XScreenSaver it isn't necessary to recompile the thing.

Also, the controlling program is a bit more powerful, too, and it also has a decent demo mode. Different screen savers can be selected using a GUI tool. Muchly amazing.

One of my favorite xscreensaver hacks is bsod.

This is the standard screensaver/screenlock program for modern X11 systems, and the replacement for XLock. Mostly written by Jamie Zawinski. The webpage is at www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

• Standard hacks
  • Ant - 2D cellular automatons
  • Attraction - balls, lines or splines that attract and repel each other
  • BSOD - simulates the catastrophic failure of several OSes
  • Blaster - colored circles shoot at each other
  • BlitSpin - rotates an image using a silly algorithm
  • Bouboule - swirling dots on a spheroid
  • Braid - circular braided lines
  • Bubbles - draws bubbles that grow when they intersect
  • Bumps - bump maps your desktop
  • C Curve - line fractals
  • Compass - spinning compass
  • Coral - draws growing coral colonies
  • Critical - self-organizing lines
  • Crystal - polygons in a pattern
  • Cynosure - draws some colored rectangles around
  • DecayScreen - melts the screen
  • Deco - subdivided colored rectangles
  • Deluxe - pulsing shapes
  • Demon - cellular automaton that organizes a random field
  • Discrete - more plane fractals
  • Distort - desktop lens
  • Drift - curvy fractals
  • Epicycle - draws paths of a circle traced on other circles
  • FadePlot - swirling ribbon
  • Flag - waves a flag of dots, with a pattern on it
  • Flame - more fractals
  • Flow - swirling attractor systems
  • Forest - fractal trees
  • Galaxy - cool smashing galaxies
  • Goop - multicolored blobs
  • Grav - simulator of orbital body motion
  • Greynetic - crazy colored rectangles
  • Halo - radiating circular patterns, 60's style
  • Helix - string art
  • Hopalong - plane fractals
  • Hyperball - rotating 4D hyper-dodecahedron
  • Hypercube - projects a rotating 4-dimensional hypercube into 2 dimensions
  • IFS - iterated function system - cool animated fractals
  • IMSMap - cloudlike patterns
  • Interference - moving color fields
  • Jigsaw - puzzle from the desktop
  • Julia - animated Julia Set fractals
  • Kaleidescope - spinning lines in a pattern
  • Kumppa - fast swirling color patches
  • LMorph - swirling spline
  • Laser - laser beams radiating from a point
  • Lightning - lightning bolts
  • Lisa - spinning multicolored Lissajous curves
  • Lissie - circles flying around a Lissajous figure
  • Loop - loopy cellular automaton
  • Maze - draws a maze and solves it
  • Moire2 - nauseating moving moires
  • Moire - Moire interference patterns
  • Mountain - 3D mountain plots
  • Munch - recursively filling squares
  • NerveRot - 3D shapes composed of nervously vibrating squiggles
  • Noseguy - little guy runs around and says stuff
  • Pedal - spirograph
  • Penetrate - Missile Command simulator
  • Penrose - draws Penrose Tiles
  • Petri2 - bacterial cultures that annihilate after a while
  • Petri - growing bacterial cultures
  • Phosphor - simulates an old phosphor terminal, with green fadeout and everything
  • Pyro - fireworks
  • Qix - Spinning lines that leave trails
  • RD-Bomb - growing squares of color
  • Ripples - splashing drops of water
  • Rocks - flying through an asteroid field
  • Rorschash - inkblot fractals
  • RotZoomer - rotates sections of your desktop
  • Rotor - boring spiralling line
  • ShadeBobs - swirling light pen things
  • Sierpinski - draws Sierpinski's triangle with dots
  • SlideScreen - sliding puzzle from the desktop
  • Slip - colors in a slipstream
  • Sonar - simulates a sonar sweep with airplanes
  • SpeedMine - nauseating trip down a mineshaft
  • SpeedWorm - funky dancing worm
  • Sphere - draws shaded spheres with dots
  • Spiral - draws some dots in a moving circle
  • Spotlight - spotlight on the desktop
  • Squiral - traces lines out and around each other
  • Starfish - spinning multicolored stars
  • Strange - animated attractor fractals
  • Swirl - progressively sharp swirly patterns
  • T3D - clock of throbbing bubbles
  • Triangle - subdividing triangles simulate terrain
  • Truchet - truchet patterns
  • Vermiculate - interesting wormy automatons
  • VidWhacker - grabs video and performs some filters on it
  • Vines - draws fractal thingies here and there
  • Wander - a random-walk automaton
  • WebCollage - grabs random images from the web and puts them on the screen
  • WhirlwindWarp - dots swirl within tornado-like fields
  • WhirlyGig - spots swirl around in a pattern
  • Worm - random-walking worms
  • XFlame - animates some fire on the bottom of the screen
  • XJack - All work and no play makes jack a dull boy.
  • XLyap - Lyapunov exponent fractals
  • XMatrix - just like in The Matrix
  • XRaySwarm - cool swarming simulation, with colored trails
  • XSpiroGraph - spirograph patterns
  • XTeeVee - simulates TV problems on your monitor
  • Zoom - zooms in on your desktop
• OpenGL/MesaGL Hacks
  • Atlantis - whales, sharks and dolphins swim around
  • Bubble3D - bubbles, in 3D
  • Cage - wooden impossible cage; very hard to look at
  • Circuit - electronic components fly around
  • DangerBall - spikey ball
  • Extrusion - extruding shapes
  • GFlux - very cool: draws a waving cloth square. Can take an image to map onto it
  • GLPlanet - spins a model of the earth around
  • GLText - spinning text, in 3D
  • Gears - classic GL hack with gears
  • Lament - solves Lemarchand's puzzle box
  • Moebius - ants walk around a Moebius Strip, like in Escher
  • Molecule - spinning molecules
  • Morph3D - shape-changing object, similar to a Win98 screensaver
  • Pipes - Win98 3D pipe animation, with joints and valves
  • Pulsar - spinning semitransparent intersecting planes
  • Rubik - a Rubik's Cube solves itself
  • Sierpinski3D - draws a 3D version of Sierpinski's Triangle, recursively finer and finer
  • Sproingies - slinkies fall down a Q*Bert like staircase
  • Stairs - ball bounces around an infinite staircase, like in Escher
  • StarWars - text scrolls by like in the intro to Star Wars
  • StonerView - squares swirl around. same as SGI's ElectroPaint
  • Superquadratics - spinning 3D functions
• Nondistributed hacks (you have to download these - see your documentation)
  • Cosmos
  • ElectricSheep
  • Goban
  • SSystem
  • SphereEversion
  • XDaliClock
  • XEarth
  • XFishTank
  • XMountains
  • XPlanet
  • XSnow
  • XaoS