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Bash Screensavers

Bash Screensavers

#bash screensaver #terminal animation #ascii visualization #shell script

Shown by attogram on Oct 28, 2025. Click the card to turn it over.

246points

77comments

#243of 3,837 in 2025

Top 7%of 2025 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

7 positive, 19 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 12 critical, out of 41 comments about the project. Thread score -0.03.

Execution: 0 for, 9 againstIdea: 6 for, 1 againstPerformance: 0 for, 2 againstDesign: 1 for, 0 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

Fun, whimsical project that brings joy to the front page
From 3 comments
- How can anyone have a bad day when great projects like this pop up on the front page of HN? Did you see the library of viz?…
  throwaway2037 on HN
- I like how all the tests seem to be contained within a "jury" folder which judges the merit of your code, made me smile - It's always nice for open-source/FOSS projects to retain…
  jsmailes on HN
- I love seeing projects like this on the front page. They are so fun and can be little small tricks that improve your quality of life drastically.
  skeptrune on HN
Nostalgia for DOS and 90s-style screensavers
From 2 comments
- This reminds me of having a screensaver in DOS.
  hk1337 on HN
- In the good ol' days, ~1990, Norton Commander had a screensaver with stars, similar to the one in the gallery readme, but with fewer stars, that grew from a dot to bigger dot, to…
  culebron21 on HN

Objections

Fails on macOS default bash because mapfile is missing
From 3 comments
- Doesn't work for me on MacOS: I get "mapfile: command not found"
  alejoar on HN
- Bash Screensavers v0.0.27 (Mystic Shine) ./screensaver.sh: line 79: mapfile: command not found 1 . (Press ^C to exit) Choose your screensaver: 1 404 Screensaver Not Found: Oh no!…
  SeeManDo on HN
- Seems to be a old version of bash installed and used by default on macos
  SeeManDo on HN
Inefficient CPU use, e.g. matrix uses high CPU
From 2 comments
- With "matrix" causing bash to consume 46% of my CPU time, I think I'll pass. I think I can play the actual film in 4K with less CPU time than that.
  axiolite on HN
- unfortunately quite inefficient, I'm sure higher framerates must be possible (at least when running in docker, maybe that's the bottleneck, but I hesitated to run this on my…
  _def on HN
Cursor is visible and flickers, should be hidden
From 2 comments
- they're generally pretty but they should really hide the cursor, it looks offputting in basically all cases
  izabera on HN
- Why does the cursor flicker around the screen for most of these? Does it have something to do with not double buffering the display?
  Evidlo on HN

Requests

Hide the cursor and fix flicker
From 2 comments
- they're generally pretty but they should really hide the cursor, it looks offputting in basically all cases
  izabera on HN
- Why does the cursor flicker around the screen for most of these? Does it have something to do with not double buffering the display?
  Evidlo on HN
Option to disable tput setab background color calls
From 1 comment
- Nice! First feature request: allow disabling all the `tput setab 0` calls throughout the codebase. This may make screensavers look weird on white terminals but should improve…
  lucideer on HN
Use alternate screen buffer to keep terminal clean
From 1 comment
- Recommendation: Use the terminal control codes 1049h and 1049l [1][2] to keep the terminal 'clean'. [1]:…
  LocoPadre on HN

Questions

Does it work as a Plasma wallpaper or standalone Qt app outside KDE
From 2 comments
- Ah, sweet! Do you know if this supports any DE (or no DE)? Or is it strictly for KDE Plasma?
  imiric on HN
- Right, but I hoped it would work as a standalone Qt app. Yeah, I've used xwinwrap before, but am lost on Wayland. I'll look into windowtolayer, thanks. I'd rather not have to…
  imiric on HN
Does it burn in OLED screens or is a saver still needed
From 2 comments
- Do screens still need to be saved?
  prmoustache on HN
- OLEDs are famous for burning in[1], so potentially "yes". 1: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2918628/your-oled-displays-worst-enemy-burn-in-heres-how-to-fight-back.html
  blacksmith_tb on HN

Alternatives named

zone.el in Emacs
From 2 comments
- I've used Emacs for years but just recently learned about zone.el. I wonder if this is based on it too. I see some of the same screensavers here.
  PessimalDecimal on HN
- Wow! The copyright of zone.el goes back to 2000. But this is the first time I hear about it! How did you find this gem?
  blenderob on HN
xscreensaver
From 1 comment
- Nice! I won't use this since screensavers are much more interesting when not limited to characters, but this is a neat project. Screensavers are a lost art. I still enjoy them,…
  imiric on HN
TerminalTextEffects
From 2 comments
- You can also experiment and make your own[1] using TerminalTextEffects[2]. I added this to my ~/.zshrc ``` > /home/keeb/code/projects/login/motd.sh ``` Which has.. ```…
  nickstinemates on HN
- fwiw I've noticed that Omarchy[1] uses some terminal-based screensavers, using something called tte[2] to do so. 1: https://omarchy.org/ 2:…
  rkapsoro on HN
cmatrix and hollywood
From 2 comments
- For tmux users: you can use the lock-command option with something like cmatrix for a quick and dirty screensaver.
  panki27 on HN
- Check hollywood out then: https://github.com/dustinkirkland/hollywood
  seba_dos1 on HN