Post #4120088
2026-07-26 18:57 UTC
'xlogo' is close to the simplest possible X11 program. But it has so many uses.
• A ruler! Make an xlogo, drag it to a size, and if your WM shows a size tooltip as you drag, you can measure distances in pixels. Any X11 app works for this (unless it's sized in character cells or something) but you want one that doesn't try to do any actual _stuff_ as a side effect.
• Also, in reverse, 'xlogo -geometry 1920x1080' and then you have a nice rectangle you can check if some other window fits into.
• An alarm clock! Sleep until a certain time and then open an xlogo too large to miss. Doesn't disturb your colleagues, but if you're looking away when it appears, that's fine, it's still there.
• A colour chart! What do those names like 'OliveDrab' mean anyway? 'xlogo -bg thingy'
• An inert X session-lifetime process, if anyone still uses those.
• Just occasionally, you might even want to display the X11 logo, or find out how to. (The xlogo source is the official definition of the logo.)
Replies (1)
-
@simontatham@hachyderm.io 2026-07-26 19:00
This month I've been using xlogo as a workaround for the fact that VLC is failing to inhibit my laptop's screensaver, so that if I connect to a TV to show a video, there's a risk of it blanking part way through. $ while xlogo -geometry 2000x1000; do sleep 240; done Now every 4 minutes a huge xlogo pops up (and my WM placement algorithm reliably puts it on the built-in monitor, because the other one is full of VLC). So I use the mouse to dismiss it, and that _does_ inhibit the screensaver. (One of these days I'll get round to actually _debugging_ the screensaver situation, but that's a faff, because every time you try something you have to wait 5 minutes to find out if it worked.)