/fuzzyflakes-screensaver-hack

This is a hack of the screensaver Fuzzyflakes so as to make it look like the ending credits of Azumanga Daioh.

Primary LanguageMakefileGNU General Public License v2.0GPL-2.0

##Hacked screensaver with an Azumanga Daioh look to it

First of all, thank you for looking at this screensaver. It has been a pet project of mine for a few months (or at least what feels like a few months). In this tarball you'll find the files that I have edited. This includes two scripts to get the song playing when the screensaver starts, the Makefile from the "hacks" directory of the xscreensaver distribution I used, and the "fuzzyflakes.c" file I hacked.

Before I get into the gruesome details of how to get this monster to work I must say that I am an amateur programmer. I have not gone through classes on programming, and have not coded up many programs. For those proficient in C they'll find some of this code to be sloppy and thrown together. They will be correct, as I threw this together in my spare time. Through what feels like countless experiments I think I have found the right way to display what I wanted. And what I wanted was something resembling the ending credits to Azumanga Daioh. I think I've done a nice job of simulating that.

Also, I would like to thank some of the people who helped me, including Joshua Ryan from Stack Overflow who helped to point me in the right direction. So without further ado, here is the information on how this can be achieved.

  • For building this screensaver

Note: I built this screensaver on a pretty good computer (Intel i7-2600 quadcore CPU with an nVidia GeForce GT 570 GPU and 8 Gigs of RAM) and I used Linux Mint 14 64-bit edition.

  1. Get a copy of the Xscreensaver sources. I used version 5.21. Install Xscreensaver if you haven't already done so. Don't forget to download and install the necessary dependencies for the Xscreensavers. Since my hacked version uses Cairo it is best to download and install the sources for that, too.

  2. Either do a diff on the supplied fuzzyflakes.c file and apply the resulting patch to the fuzzyflakes.c file in the official Xscreensaver sources, or just back-up the official fuzzyflakes.c file and drop in this one.

  3. Look in the supplied Makefile and scroll down to line 800. There you'll find a line similar to this:

fuzzyflakes: fuzzyflakes.o $(HACK_OBJS) $(CC_HACK) -g -o $@ $@.o $(HACK_OBJS) $(HACK_LIBS)

First generate the official Makefile for the Xscreensaver. Then open up the resulting Makefile and change those lines to this:

fuzzyflakes: fuzzyflakes.o $(HACK_OBJS) $(CC_HACK) pkg-config --cflags cairo -g -o $@ $@.o $(HACK_OBJS) $(HACK_LIBS) -lcairo

  1. Open up a command line to the Xscreensaver directory, type "make", and cross your fingers. If I have written these directions correctly the screensavers will build without any errors. Otherwise I'm going to have to answer a lot of questions.

  2. Copy the resulting Fuzzyflakes file to the /usr/lib/xscreensaver/ directory (or wherever the xscreensavers are stored on your distribution). It may be wise to also back-up the original Fuzzyflakes executable.

  3. Back-up the configuration file for Fuzzyflakes in /usr/share/xscreensaver/config (or, again, wherever the configuration files for xscreensaver are located) and copy the provided fuzzyflakes.xml file to the Xscreensaver config directory.

  4. Go into the Xscreensaver configuration dialog and choose "Fuzzyflakes". Then go into the "Settings..." for Fuzzyflakes and choose "Green" from the dropdown menu.

  5. Copy either of the "run_song" Perl scripts from the provided tarball to your Autostart directory. On some distributions the first one will not work. If that is the case, use the second provided script. Be sure to open them up and point the "System(Play...)" command to the directory where you have a copy of the song. Where you get a copy of the song, "Raspberry Heaven", is up to you.

  6. Make it so that one of the files starts up when you login to your desktop environment. How this is achieved is not in the scope of these directions; that is best left up to the results of a search from your favorite search engine. Alternatively, you can run this script from the command line.

If all goes according to plan, when your screensaver starts, you will be greeted with fuzzy flakes, some clouds, and the ending theme to one of the funniest anime ever.

  • Credits

Original Writer of Fuzzyflakes: Barry Dmytro badcherry@mailc.net

Guy who hacked this together: Jason Anderson <jasona.594 (at) gmail.com>

One contributor: Joshua Ryan <luser.droog (at) gmail.com>

All rights reserved. Code copyright 2004-2013, released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.