General TC > General TC Talk
Trying to have xscreensaver - for a digital picture frame
Rich:
Hi Richard Cranium
This was your original goal:
--- Quote from: Richard Cranium on November 23, 2025, 03:40:20 PM ---I found this old beat up Compaq laptop at a local thrift store for a grand total of $5 and had the idea to make a picture frame out of it using TC ...
--- End quote ---
That means you don't need a GUI.
You only need to install graphics-KERNEL and fbv.
You'll want a persistent /home where you'll keep the pictures to be displayed, for example:
--- Code: ---/home/tc/MyPictures/
--- End code ---
At the end of /home/tc/.profile place this:
--- Code: ---while true; do fbv -f -a -e -i -s 50 MyPictures/*; done
--- End code ---
This will display each picture for 5 seconds.
Each picture will be sized to fit the screen as best as possible.
When it reaches the last picture, it restarts the sequence.
I know fbv supports .jpg and .png formats.
Options for fbv can be displayed with:
--- Code: ---fbv --help
--- End code ---
Richard Cranium:
--- Quote from: Rich on November 25, 2025, 11:29:44 AM ---Hi Richard Cranium
This was your original goal:
--- Quote from: Richard Cranium on November 23, 2025, 03:40:20 PM ---I found this old beat up Compaq laptop at a local thrift store for a grand total of $5 and had the idea to make a picture frame out of it using TC ...
--- End quote ---
That means you don't need a GUI.
You only need to install graphics-KERNEL and fbv.
You'll want a persistent /home where you'll keep the pictures to be displayed, for example:
--- Code: ---/home/tc/MyPictures/
--- End code ---
At the end of /home/tc/.profile place this:
--- Code: ---while true; do fbv -f -a -e -i -s 50 MyPictures/*; done
--- End code ---
This will display each picture for 5 seconds.
Each picture will be sized to fit the screen as best as possible.
When it reaches the last picture, it restarts the sequence.
I know fbv supports .jpg and .png formats.
Options for fbv can be displayed with:
--- Code: ---fbv --help
--- End code ---
--- End quote ---
but it all can still work even with a gui (desktop)??
Rich:
Hi Richard Cranium
--- Quote from: Richard Cranium on November 25, 2025, 05:55:01 PM ---but it all can still work even with a gui (desktop)??
--- End quote ---
Sure, if you want to make your life more difficult.
You'll need to install Xvesa or Xfbdev or Xorg.
You'll need to use feh instead of fbv.
feh depends on ca-certificates, curl, and openssl. That might cause
problems since that laptop has no network access, I don't know.
(I just checked, it runs without network access.)
You'll need a persistent /home where you'll keep the pictures to be displayed, for example:
--- Code: ---/home/tc/MyPictures/
--- End code ---
You'll need to create a file in /home/tc/.X.d/ containing:
--- Code: ---feh -r -D 5 -F -Z /home/tc/MyPictures/* &
--- End code ---
You can use any name you want for that file, for example StartFeh.
That command will automatically get executed once the GUI is
up and running. If you hit q on the keyboard, it will stop.
If you do it like this, it will restart if someone tries to stop the slideshow:
--- Code: ---while true; do feh -r -D 5 -F -Z /home/tc/MyPictures/*; done &
--- End code ---
gadget42:
after visiting:
https://linux.die.net/man/1/feh
wanted to quote a snippet:
--- Quote -----index-info format
Show image information based on format below thumbnails in index / thumbnail mode. See FORMAT SPECIFIERS. May contain newlines.
Note: If you specify image-related formats (such as %w or %s), feh needs to load all images to calculate the dimensions of its own window. So when using them with many files, it will take a while before a feh window becomes visible. Use --preload to get a progress bar.
--- End quote ---
mostly just to specifically note:
*So when using them with many files, it will take a while before a feh window becomes visible. Use --preload to get a progress bar.*
Richard Cranium:
--- Quote from: Rich on November 25, 2025, 09:23:44 PM ---Hi Richard Cranium
--- Quote from: Richard Cranium on November 25, 2025, 05:55:01 PM ---but it all can still work even with a gui (desktop)??
--- End quote ---
Sure, if you want to make your life more difficult.
You'll need to install Xvesa or Xfbdev or Xorg.
You'll need to use feh instead of fbv.
feh depends on ca-certificates, curl, and openssl. That might cause
problems since that laptop has no network access, I don't know.
(I just checked, it runs without network access.)
You'll need a persistent /home where you'll keep the pictures to be displayed, for example:
--- Code: ---/home/tc/MyPictures/
--- End code ---
You'll need to create a file in /home/tc/.X.d/ containing:
--- Code: ---feh -r -D 5 -F -Z /home/tc/MyPictures/* &
--- End code ---
You can use any name you want for that file, for example StartFeh.
That command will automatically get executed once the GUI is
up and running. If you hit q on the keyboard, it will stop.
If you do it like this, it will restart if someone tries to stop the slideshow:
--- Code: ---while true; do feh -r -D 5 -F -Z /home/tc/MyPictures/*; done &
--- End code ---
--- End quote ---
Nah , It's not that I think I'm making or trying to make it more difficult , it's actually the opposite , it's a "just in case" kinda thing , for example - I'm most likely going to just remove the storage device (in this case i've installed an sd card ide adapter) whenever I wish to add more pictures , but what if I don't want to remove it? , well then the other option is usb thumb drive (just like any other digital picture frame) and load them that way...
so that's my reason for asking the questions...
also , back to my last question about configuring xscreensaver to auto start..., looking at the install notes in the package manager description is what has me a little confused ...
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