#Configure xscreensaver install#

fortune -o selects only offensive fortunes, which are mainly bad dirty jokes. Look in /usr/share/games/fortune to see the names of your installed fortune databases. You can get even fussier and control how often each database will be called with percentages: $ fortune 30% riddles 10% chalkboard 60% literature You can select a specific database like this: $ fortune riddlesįORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #19Īnd you can select multiple databases like this: $ fortune riddles chalkboard literature fortunes-ubuntu-server – Ubuntu server tips for fortune.fortunes-spam – fortunes taken from SPAM messages.fortunes-off – Data files containing offensive fortune cookies.fortunes-mario – Fortunes files from Mario.fortunes-debian-hints – Debian Hints for fortune.fortunes-bofh-excuses- BOFH excuses for fortune.Some of the fortune databases in the standard *buntu repos are: There are multiple fortune databases, so fortune -c tells you which one each quotation comes from. fortune -s selects short quotations only, which is 160 characters or less. But you can do more because fortune supports a number of options.

The simplest usage is to copy the command name– fortune - onto the Program line, and remember to check the checkbox. The fortune command is another hackable oldie but goodie, and it makes a great Star Wars crawl because it displays random quotations from multiple databases. Just copy your chosen RSS feed link (note that there are several to choose from) onto the URL line, then return to the Display Modes tab to preview it.

Perhaps you would rather see good content in your Star Wars screensaver. Figure 2 shows my default Kubuntu configuration. Text Manipulation controls the content of the crawl. Go the Advanced tab, and take a look at the four configuration panels: Image Manipulation, Display Power Management, Text Manipulation, and Fading and Colormaps. Open xscreensaver-demo, which should open with a click of the Xscreensaver menu icon.

These are both fine and dandy, but why live with the default when you can program the crawl to display what you want? Xscreensaver is designed to make this easy. *buntu (U/Ku/Lu/Xu/etc./buntu) displays the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter instead. If you prefer a language other than English, just replace “en” in the URL with the appropriate encoding. The default behavior for the Star Wars screensaver is to pull recent RSS entries from Wikipedia. You may find other screensavers in your distro repos. The base is xscreensaver, and then depending on your distro you’ll have some additional packages to give you more screensavers such as xscreensaver-data-extra, xscreensaver-gl, and xscreensaver-gl-extra.

#Configure xscreensaver install#

When you install it you have several packages to choose from. You don’t need these anyway because Xscreensaver runs fine without them, and you get more configuration options. Except GNOME 3, which has decided its users don’t need screensavers, so it only blanks the screen. GNOME and KDE have their own front-ends for Xscreensaver. There is a sad blurry lo-fi rendition of the original Star Wars opening crawl on YouTube. Which may be obvious to my fellow geezers and codgers, but there are young whippersnappers walking the Earth now who have no clue what Star Wars is. The Star Wars screensaver displays a text crawl like the beginning of the Star Wars movie.

My favorites are Atlantis, Matrix, Bouncing Cow (that one entertains my dog for hours) and Star Wars (figure 1). Xscreensaver supports 200+ screensavers thanks to its modular structure, which allows contributors to plug in new screensavers seamlessly. Xscreensaver runs on any Linux, Unix, OS X, and iOS. Xscreensaver has been around since forever, or more precisely 1992, which in Linux-years is forever. I love screensavers, and the timeless old Xscreensaver by Jamie Zawinski is still my favorite.