Xsnow — Falling Snow on Your Linux Desktop

Today’s post is a bit of a themed one: how to create a New Year mood with a snowstorm on your Linux computer’s desktop. We’ll talk about an open source utility — Xsnow. As tradition dictates, we’ll install and configure it on Linux Mint)

P.S. Happy upcoming holidays to everyone! 🎅🎅🎅

Preface

The Xsnow utility has been around for a very long time. According to the English Wikipedia, its origins date back to 1984, and then in the early 90s it moved to the X Window System (the classic Linux subsystem responsible for graphical display) thanks to its author Rick Jansen.

I’m not great at translating, so I’ll give a short excerpt from the wiki in English:

Xsnow is a software application that creates the appearance of snow falling on the elements of the graphical user interface of a computer system. Xsnow was originally created as a virtual greeting card for Macintosh systems in 1984. In 1993, the concept was ported to the X Window System as Xsnow, and was included on a number of Linux distributions in the late 1990s.

Wikipedia

While preparing the material, I discovered something interesting.

If you search xsnow on Yandex right now, you can see a cool reference! Snow will start falling in the browser and Santa will fly off about his business. Just like it looks in Xsnow. Honestly, I didn’t expect that from a search engine) paying tribute to old-school stuff) commendable)

Installing xsnow on Linux Mint

Before installing xsnow, I did a preliminary search in the Linux Mint repositories. Here’s what the short description of this package says:

sudo apt search xsnow

Short and to the point)

So, to install the Xsnow utility on Linux Mint 21, run in the terminal:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install xsnow

Updating the package cache

Installing xsnow

Done.

Configuring xsnow

You can launch the utility via the terminal or the main menu:

Launching xsnow

xsnow

After launching, the default settings will apply and a bit of a mess will start on the desktop)

A bit of a mess)

You can explore the settings, there are quite a lot of them.

Personally, I prefer minimalism and usually turn off almost everything except the snow. I set the intensity and speed of the falling snow to my liking.

It looks roughly like this:

Xsnow minimalism)

If you share my views, you can copy my config into your system. To do this, you need to open and edit the configuration file ~/.xsnowrc (which has recently switched to XML format) in any text editor.

By the way, I recently had a note about a fork of the VSCode code editor stripped of telemetry, called — VSCodium. So let’s open the Xsnow config with it:

codium ~/.xsnowrc

Replace the contents with:

Aurora 0
AuroraBase 50
AuroraBrightness 15
AuroraHeight 30
AuroraSpeed 50
AuroraWidth 60
AuroraLeft 0
AuroraMiddle 1
AuroraRight 0
AllWorkspaces 1
BlowOffFactor 40
BlowSnow 0
CpuLoad 100
Transparency 0
Screen -1
Scale 100
DesiredNumberOfTrees 10
FlakeCountMax 250
Halo 0
HaloBright 25
MaxOnTrees 200
MaxScrSnowDepth 20
MaxWinSnowDepth 20
MeteorFrequency 40
Moon 0
MoonSpeed 120
MoonSize 100
NoFluffy 0
NoKeepSBot 1
NoKeepSnow 0
NoKeepSnowOnTrees 1
NoKeepSWin 1
NoMeteors 1
NoSanta 1
NoSnowFlakes 0
NoTrees 1
NoWind 1
NStars 20
OffsetS 0
OffsetW -8
OffsetX 4
OffsetY 0
Overlap 1
Rudolf 1
SantaSize 3
SantaSpeedFactor 100
SnowFlakesFactor 100
SnowSize 4
SnowSpeedFactor 20
Stars 0
ThemeXsnow 0
Outline 0
TreeFill 30
VintageFlakes 0
WhirlFactor 100
WindTimer 30
IgnoreTop 0
IgnoreBottom 0
SnowColor #eceff4
TreeColor #7fff00
TreeType 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,
Anarchy 50
AttrFactor 100
BirdsOnly 0
BirdsRestart 0
BirdsScale 100
AttrSpace 40
BirdsSpeed 100
DisWeight 20
FollowWeight 30
FollowSanta 0
Nbirds 70
Neighbours 7
PrefDistance 40
ShowAttrPoint 0
ShowBirds 0
ViewingDistance 40
BirdsColor #361A07
BackgroundFile 
BlackBackground 0

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsnow_flags>
  <AllWorkspaces>1</AllWorkspaces>
  <BlowOffFactor>40</BlowOffFactor>
  <BlowSnow>0</BlowSnow>
  <CpuLoad>100</CpuLoad>
  <Transparency>0</Transparency>
  <Scale>100</Scale>
  <DesiredNumberOfTrees>10</DesiredNumberOfTrees>
  <FlakeCountMax>250</FlakeCountMax>
  <Halo>0</Halo>
  <HaloBright>25</HaloBright>
  <MaxOnTrees>200</MaxOnTrees>
  <MaxScrSnowDepth>20</MaxScrSnowDepth>
  <MaxWinSnowDepth>20</MaxWinSnowDepth>
  <Moon>0</Moon>
  <MoonSpeed>120</MoonSpeed>
  <MoonSize>100</MoonSize>
  <NoFluffy>0</NoFluffy>
  <NoKeepSBot>1</NoKeepSBot>
  <NoKeepSnow>0</NoKeepSnow>
  <NoKeepSnowOnTrees>1</NoKeepSnowOnTrees>
  <NoKeepSWin>1</NoKeepSWin>
  <NoMeteorites>1</NoMeteorites>
  <NoSanta>1</NoSanta>
  <NoSnowFlakes>0</NoSnowFlakes>
  <NoTrees>1</NoTrees>
  <NoWind>1</NoWind>
  <NStars>20</NStars>
  <OffsetS>0</OffsetS>
  <OffsetW>-8</OffsetW>
  <OffsetX>4</OffsetX>
  <OffsetY>0</OffsetY>
  <Overlap>1</Overlap>
  <Rudolf>1</Rudolf>
  <SantaSize>3</SantaSize>
  <SantaSpeedFactor>100</SantaSpeedFactor>
  <SnowFlakesFactor>100</SnowFlakesFactor>
  <SnowSize>4</SnowSize>
  <SnowSpeedFactor>20</SnowSpeedFactor>
  <Stars>0</Stars>
  <ThemeXsnow>0</ThemeXsnow>
  <TreeFill>30</TreeFill>
  <VintageFlakes>0</VintageFlakes>
  <WhirlFactor>100</WhirlFactor>
  <WindTimer>30</WindTimer>
  <SnowColor>#eceff4</SnowColor>
  <TreeColor>chartreuse</TreeColor>
  <TreeType>1,2,3,4,5,6,7,</TreeType>
  <Anarchy>50</Anarchy>
  <AttrFactor>100</AttrFactor>
  <BirdsOnly>0</BirdsOnly>
  <BirdsRestart>0</BirdsRestart>
  <BirdsScale>100</BirdsScale>
  <BirdsSpeed>100</BirdsSpeed>
  <DisWeight>20</DisWeight>
  <FollowWeight>30</FollowWeight>
  <FollowSanta>0</FollowSanta>
  <Nbirds>70</Nbirds>
  <Neighbours>7</Neighbours>
  <PrefDistance>40</PrefDistance>
  <ShowAttrPoint>0</ShowAttrPoint>
  <ShowBirds>0</ShowBirds>
  <ViewingDistance>40</ViewingDistance>
  <BirdsColor>#361A07</BirdsColor>
</xsnow_flags>

This config is also available in my repo on GitHub.

By the way, the program’s config is generated automatically when opening the program’s graphical menu.

Save and close.

Setting Up xsnow Autostart

Now let’s set up the program’s autostart. To do this, go to the system settings, then the Startup Applications option:

Linux Mint settings menu

Click the + button to add:

Adding a program to autostart

Find xsnow, select it, and click Add Application:

Searching for xsnow

Now Xsnow will launch every time you log in.

Enabling autostart

For correct startup, let’s add a 5 second delay and a parameter that disables opening the program’s graphical window on launch:

xsnow -nomenu

Interesting fact. The age of the program is also revealed by the syntax of its options — long options use a single dash instead of two.

Click Save:

Configuring autostart parameters

Done. To launch the program now, click the corresponding button, having first selected the desired application:

Launching the program

Sometimes I enable the flying Santa. This can be done by adding the corresponding parameter to the launch command:

xsnow -nomenu -showsanta

Adding the Santa parameter

Let’s go

Video Demonstration

A while back, I recorded a short video demonstration of Xsnow. So I’ll just leave it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uF-a3WWBks

Demonstration of Xsnow in action

Related Materials

• Homepage of the program’s author (En)
• Package information on SourceForge (En)
• Xnsow — Wikipedia (En)

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💬 All the best ✌️

That should be it. If not, check the logs 🙂