MrGlockenspiel /activate-linux

The "Activate Windows" watermark ported to Linux

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CCreated 2022-03-16
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README

activate-linux


The "Activate Windows" watermark ported to Linux with cairo in C

"Science isn't about WHY. It's about WHY NOT. Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much. In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you on the butt on the way out, because you are fired." — Cave Johnson (Portal 2)

 Read ARGS.md for information about command line arguments.

 Building
Note that the executable's name depends on the target platform.
You can use make install to install and make uninstall to remove it.

 Xmake
I've been experimenting with using Xmake for building instead of make, you can test this by installing it and running
console
xmake

Please leave feedback to improve this if you want

 nix:
console
make


 Windows (using MSYS2):
Replace gcc with clang, if you want. But then don't forget to start proper shortcut MSYS2 CLANG64.
console
pacman -S --noconfirm git make pkgconf pactoys
pacboy -S --noconfirm gcc:p
git clone https://github.com/MrGlockenspiel/activate-linux
cd activate-linux
export backends=gdi
make


 Linux

 Dependencies
This project depends on:
- libcairo2-dev
- libpango1.0-dev
- libxi-dev
- libx11-dev
- x11proto-core-dev
- x11proto-dev
- libxt-dev
- libxext-dev
- libxfixes-dev
- libxinerama-dev
- libxrandr-dev
- libwayland-dev
- wayland-protocols

Optional dependencies:
- libconfig-dev

Those packages may be installed (in Debian-based distros) like this:
console
sudo apt install libconfig-dev libcairo2-dev libxi-dev libx11-dev x11proto-core-dev x11proto-dev \
libxt-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libwayland-dev wayland-protocols libpango1.0-dev



 Installing

 Ubuntu
@eddelbuettel runs a PPA with activate linux in it, so it can be installed with:
console
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:edd/misc
sudo apt update
sudo apt install activate-linux


 Arch Linux
This project is in the AUR under activate-linux-git.

Install/uninstall it using your favorite AUR helper.

 Nix (NixOS)
This repository is a flake. Run it using nix run "github:MrGlockenspiel/activate-linux".

 Gentoo
@Plexvola maintains an ebuild for activate-linux and can be installed with the following
console
eselect repository enable vaacus
emerge --sync vaacus
emerge -av activate-linux


 Windows

 Scoop

You can install it on the Extras bucket:
powershell
scoop bucket add extras  Ensure bucket is added first
scoop install activate-linux



 MacOS (Horrific)

 Dependencies

Use MacPorts to install the following, then build normally.

- xorg-server
- cairo
- xorg-libXinerama

Alternatively, you can use this project instead because it actually works properly.

 Example:

!screenshot

Snapshot: 2026-11-10T09:35:25Z · Data license Apache-2.0 · JSON