The official documentation for xscreensaver gives an example of how to play videos as a screensaver:
Install mpv and add something like the following to the `programs' preference in your .xscreensaver file:
"My Movie" mpv --really-quiet --no-audio --fs --loop=inf \
--no-stop-screensaver \
--wid=$XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW \
$HOME/movies/*.mp4 \n\
That's all well and good, but I would love to have one less dependency on my system (namely, mpv). I'd like to do the same thing, but with VLC.
I've tried adding this to my .xscreensaver file:
"My Movie" vlc -L -R -f --intf dummy --no-video-title-show \
$HOME/movies/*.mp4 \n\
This command works perfectly on the command line, but when launched via xscreensaver, this happens:
Sorry for the blurrycam, I couldn't take a screenshot without exiting the screensaver!
What do you mean, unknown option or missing mandatory argument '--intf'
?! It's right there!
Does anyone know why I can't get this VLC command to run via xscreensaver, when it works perfectly when launched straight-up on the command line?