Thanks for the follow-up & for sharing your experience. I suppose this kinda thing highlights one of the quiet strengths of the X11 approach… Simple tools like xwinwrap paired with mpv tend to be more lightweight and predictable, especially when you just want a looping video without the overhead. There’s something to be said for minimal scripts doing exactly what you need with no surprises…

I hadn’t come across mpvpaper before, so I decided to look it up. While it seems interesting, my initial impression is that it might be a bit more resource-intensive compared to what’s achievable on X11. On X11, you can set up a video wallpaper using mpv with surprisingly little effort and minimal code…

if pgrep mpv; then
    pkill mpv; else
    xwinwrap -ni -fs -s -st -sp -b -nf -- mpv --profile=wallpaper -wid %WID /home/furycd001/wallpapers/wallpaper.mp4
  fi

System service managers like systemd, OpenRC, runit, or SysVinit often come down to user preference. While these systems are crucial for initializing and managing services on servers, where uptime, resource allocation, and specific daemon behaviors are important, their impact on a typical desktop or laptop is generally minimal.

For most personal devices, the primary functions of a service manager occur largely out of sight. As long as the system boots reliably and applications run smoothly, the underlying service manager rarely registers as a significant factor in the daily user experience.

For many, including myself, systemd simply works without much fuss. My choice to stick with it isn’t due to strong conviction or deep technical analysis, but rather the simple fact that I’ve rarely, if ever, had to interact with it directly. For my personal desktop and laptop, it reliably handles booting, service management, and shutdown in the background. If it’s not broken and isn’t hindering my daily computing, there’s no compelling reason to explore alternatives.

Wholesome post •^~•

I remember many years ago, someone did this with xterm, and someone else later got it working with urxvt…

Worging?