xsnow and xglsnow in Fedora 8

[sideways]

(Same instructions for F9 and F10)

It's that time of year again, so let's waste cpu resources in a completely unnecessary way.

xsnow is straightforward, the FC3 rpm (X86_64 version) still works in F8,F9 and F10 with a small symlink required

rpm -Uhv xsnow-1.42-15.i386.rpm
ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/xsnow   /usr/bin/xsnow

To start use 'xsnow &', and to stop use 'killall xsnow', see the man page for a surprisingly long list of options.

xglsnow is a little sexier (but not that much), unfortunately the latest version available at http://cornergraf.net/projects/xglsnow/ won't compile, but download it anyway as it contains a nice texture to use for the snow (edit, this texture is no longer needed in F10) , also see that page for links to suitable backgrounds (slight overkill if you ask me)

Instead we'll get a snapshot from gitweb.opencompositing.org, first we need compiz-fusion, for gnome this is the list of required packages (others will be installed as dependencies, ~5.2Mb in total)

 yum install compiz-fusion-gnome compiz-fusion-extras-gnome emerald-themes fusion-icon-gtk compiz-bcop

If you have problems then try leigh123's unofficial repository, many seem to have success with that.
(for kde substitute kde packages and fusion-icon-qt)

Now you can start compiz-fusion from Applications->System Tools->Compiz Fusion Icon, a helpful blue cube icon should appear in the top panel, use this for management and configuration.

Now we install some development packages

yum install make libtool gcc wget compiz-devel compiz-fusion-devel

Now get the latest xglsnow snapshot from http://gitweb.opencompositing.org/?p...n/plugins/snow, then compile and install (don't do this as root, you want the install in your own home directory not root's)
EDIT In F10 use this snapshot

EDIT In F8, try an older snapshot like this one, which compiles on a fresh F8 install with just a few non-fatal warnings

tar xvf snow-*.tar.gz
cd snow
make
sudo make install

NB if you haven't set up sudo then run the last command as

su -pc 'make install'

you''ll need root password (If you just use 'su -c' it will install in /root not your own home directory)

Now run ccsm by right-clicking the blue fusion-icon and selecting 'Settings Manager', Snow is an effect available under 'Extras', enable it and click the snowflake icon to get options. You may need to add a texture (if you used an old snapshot), a suitable one is from http://cornergraf.net/projects/xglsnow mentioned above, in the xglsnow tarball there is an image called snowflake2.png.

Hit Super + F3 to toggle snow on/off. If the super key is not mapped to the windows key, then you can change this setting in the options for the plugin (to, eg, Shift + F3) under the 'Actions' tab.
NOTE you need to reload the window manager if the effect doesn't start (select 'Reload Window Manager' from the fusion-icon menu)

Happy Holidays!


EDIT, you can run xsnow & xglsnow together, eg to get the santa from xsnow (and turn off all the snow in xsnow, 'xsnow -snowflakes 0 &') see attachment

[JN4OldSchool]

Thats all well and fine, but I seem to have a problem with the snow. I get a bunch of little mini-jn4's instead of snow? Help?

[sideways]

That actually looks ok!

But to get something more snowlike you need to add an appropriate texture in the 'Textures' tab option for the snow plugin, there's a suitable png called snowflake2.png in the xglsnow tarball at http://cornergraf.net/projects/xglsnow/

[Dangermouse]

Guess it wouldnt be Christmas without xsnow so here it is again
The rpms are available here
http://dnmouse.org/fedora/Dave/
To install xsnow

su
rpm -ivh /path/to/xsnow.rpm
ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/xsnow /usr/bin/xsnow

Now just type xsnow in a terminal

[Tekno_Cowboy]

Thanks! I'll have to see how it works with KDE 4 though, I've been putting up with the KWin Snow...

[sideways]

Don't forget xglsnow

You can run it together with xsnow to get the santa, just turn off flakes in xsnow first

[Dangermouse]

Don't forget xglsnow

You can run it together with xsnow to get the santa, just turn off flakes in xsnow first

I forgotton about xglsnow, thanks sideways


Merged threads didnt realise there was already a xsnow thread and sideways is much better than mine

[sideways]

Sorry about the large size of the attachments above, I would resize them but the attcahment feature isn't working at the moment, In case you don't want to waste the bandwidth here's a smaller sized image (76k)