topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday March 28, 2024, 1:18 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Last post Author Topic: Name the screensaver.  (Read 27240 times)

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Name the screensaver.
« on: November 29, 2007, 07:37 AM »
Ok this is an odd post. I saw a really hypnotising screen-saver running on a Linux box. It looks like a type of self-drawing modern art. I had no access to the PC so snapped a pic with my camera phone. Is there any chance that someone out there knows the name, I just have track it down  :D

Saver.jpgName the screensaver.

Ralf Maximus

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2007
  • **
  • Posts: 927
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2007, 08:51 AM »
I think that monitor's just broken.

(Sorry; no idea...)

MerleOne

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 957
  • 4D thinking
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2007, 01:58 PM »
.merle1.

elias.jott

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2007
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #3 on: November 29, 2007, 02:02 PM »
I did a quick Google picture search and found something. The screensaver is called Substrate. It is included in this package: http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
Take a look at the Screenshot section and tell me if this is what you are looking for.

I even found a Windows port: http://www.fredstobe.../download/index.html

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #4 on: November 29, 2007, 03:04 PM »
Whow thanks elias.jott, that was exactly the screensaver I was looking for, some donations credits headed your way as a thanks.

How'd you track it down? :)

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #5 on: November 29, 2007, 09:43 PM »
Oh it's beautiful -- nice discovery and nice work tracking it down  :up:

elias.jott

  • Participant
  • Joined in 2007
  • *
  • Posts: 3
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #6 on: November 30, 2007, 12:10 AM »
How'd you track it down? :)

Please don't laugh now - it only took two search attempts! I was really surprised to actually find anything ...
Eventually the words "linux screensaver art" did the trick in the Google picture search. But to be honest it was just plain luck. ;)

BTW, the screensaver is really nice!


PS: I was watching this forums for quite a while, but never found the time to register. But as i found the answer to your question i finally had to. - So it did pay off for me, too! ;)

Eóin

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 1,401
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #7 on: November 30, 2007, 10:18 AM »
I hope you continue to stick around elias.jott :)

With the name I found the original author together with a host of other beautiful examples of computer art at Gallery of Computation.

univ33.jpg

MerleOne

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 957
  • 4D thinking
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #8 on: November 30, 2007, 10:41 AM »
Actually the best screensaver I found some time ago was made by William Latham, a UK artist.  Alas, it stopped working on XP.
See http://ourworld.comp...rk_Ayres/CompArt.htm

It was called organic art.

I really would like to find a working copy under XP...
.merle1.

tomos

  • Charter Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • ***
  • Posts: 11,959
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #9 on: November 30, 2007, 10:47 AM »
that first one has a sort of a town plan meets Kandinsky feel to it

I love the second one, they're both really beautiful images though...
Tom

jeromg

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 71
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #10 on: December 02, 2007, 02:08 PM »
This is slightly off-topic, but the only screensaver I can accept on my machines is http://electricsheep.org/
Beautiful, hypnotic videos... Note this uses your CPU idle time (when screensaver is running) to calculate these images and share them with other members of the community. Enjoy!

Cheers  /jerome

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #11 on: December 02, 2007, 02:34 PM »
jeromg, thats a wonderful find i never heard about!

Ralf Maximus

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2007
  • **
  • Posts: 927
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2007, 03:11 PM »
While I love the electric sheep, a couple of things are good to know before you dive headlong into electric sheep land:

- I used it for awhile and it hammered my workstation in terms of CPU utilization.

- Because it's constantly communicating with the electric sheep network, it also used a lot of bandwidth.  Not sure how much, but it was definitely hitting the 'net hard, such that it was noticeable on other workstations in my network.

- It uses something like BitTorrent to transfer sheep around, so if you're nervous about security vulnerabilities (or are ignorant of what ports P2P uses, and how many) you might want to be careful.

- Because it uses P2P all the time while your screensaver is active, you might incur the wrath of your ISP (*cough* Comcast *cough*) and attract unwanted attention.  Using P2P once in awhile is safe, but running it 24/7 might be risky.

Like I said, I think it's a brilliant program and the images are quite beautiful.  But be aware of what you're really installing before just setting and forgetting.  For instance, installing it on every PC in a workgroup might suck up all available bandwidth.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention... if you want to see the animations without actually installing the screensaver, you can download gigabytes of sheep movies from the electricsheep.org website.  They'll work in any media player that can handle .mpeg files.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2007, 03:12 PM by Ralf Maximus »

housetier

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 1,321
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2008, 06:39 PM »
Yay I finally found a screensaver worthy to install: substrate it is! It is just beautiful, so urban!...

fredst

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2008, 03:23 PM »
If you've downloaded the substrate screensaver for windows from www.fredstober.de/download/index.html please update to the latest version.
There were some color problems in the previous version which are now fixed.

If you notice any bugs/problems/missing features please report them at [email protected]

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2008, 03:34 PM »
fred!
what a fantastic treat to see you here  :tellme:

as you can see from this thread, a lot of us are head over heels for this wonderful screensaver  :-* :-* :-*
beautiful work!

fredst

  • Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2008
  • **
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2008, 03:40 PM »
I only ported it to windows and tweaked it a little bit. The credit goes to the artist Jared Tarbell and the programmers Mike Kershaw and Jamie Zawinski.

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2008, 03:40 PM »
well there is enough credit to go around :)  :up: :up:

housetier

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 1,321
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2008, 04:06 PM »
Well the truth is: I have yet to see the screensaver in action.

So far the screen only went blank, I guess I'll have to ask someone with more inticate knowledge of gnome-screensaver about this.

app103

  • That scary taskbar girl
  • Global Moderator
  • Joined in 2006
  • *****
  • Posts: 5,884
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2008, 04:29 PM »
This is one very awesome screensaver.

I am having a hard time deciding if I want to go back to using a screensaver again or sticking with letting power management shut my monitor off.

Anybody want a desktop wallpaper?  :D
substrate.pngName the screensaver.

MerleOne

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 957
  • 4D thinking
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #20 on: January 23, 2008, 04:37 PM »
Well the truth is: I have yet to see the screensaver in action.

So far the screen only went blank, I guess I'll have to ask someone with more inticate knowledge of gnome-screensaver about this.

You could try to update the drivers of your graphic card to the latest version, if not already done.  This can solve many problems !
.merle1.

mouser

  • First Author
  • Administrator
  • Joined in 2005
  • *****
  • Posts: 40,896
    • View Profile
    • Mouser's Software Zone on DonationCoder.com
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #21 on: January 23, 2008, 04:55 PM »
What i'd really love is if substrate worked across multiple monitors  :-*

housetier

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • default avatar
  • Posts: 1,321
    • View Profile
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #22 on: January 23, 2008, 05:04 PM »
Merle I think there is a setting I have overlooked. Previewing substrate works very well. I bet there is some powersaving thingie in my gnome-settings

f0dder

  • Charter Honorary Member
  • Joined in 2005
  • ***
  • Posts: 9,153
  • [Well, THAT escalated quickly!]
    • View Profile
    • f0dder's place
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #23 on: January 23, 2008, 05:07 PM »
I thought I had seen this somewhere earlier on DC.

Did a board search for the URL Eóin finally found, and came up with this thread :)

Oh, and yeah, multi-monitor support would be swell. And anti-aliased lines :P
- carpe noctem
« Last Edit: January 23, 2008, 05:10 PM by f0dder »

MerleOne

  • Supporting Member
  • Joined in 2006
  • **
  • Posts: 957
  • 4D thinking
    • View Profile
    • Read more about this member.
    • Donate to Member
Re: Name the screensaver.
« Reply #24 on: January 24, 2008, 12:50 AM »
Merle I think there is a setting I have overlooked. Previewing substrate works very well. I bet there is some powersaving thingie in my gnome-settings
If the delay for blanking your screen is shorter than the one used for activating the screensaver then you should only have a blank screen....
.merle1.