Current version of XPenguins: 2.1 (28 May 2001).
Current version of XPenguins Themes: 0.2 (7 May 2001).
Current version of XPenguins the GNOME Applet: 0.9beta1 (30 October 2000).
Older versions

XPenguins was written by Robin Hogan.

Ever wanted cute little penguins walking along the tops of your windows? Ever wanted to send an army of cute little penguins to invade the screen of someone else on your network? Probably not, but why not try this program out anyway - it's free (licensed under the GNU GPL).

You need something that runs the X Window System (i.e. Linux, UNIX etc), and have the ubiquitous Xpm library installed. If you want penguins to invade your Microsoft Windows desktop then Mike Vines has rewritten XPenguins as WinPenguins!!!

Version 2 is themeable, so if you're bored of penguins you can try `xpenguins --theme "Turtles"' to get some nice turtles images (by Mayuko Nagata), or download some extra themes. Most of the default penguin images were taken from Pingus, a free lemmings clone for Linux, although more have been created for XPenguins version 2. If you want to create a theme from animated gifs, you may find this gimp script useful.

Since version 2.1, xpenguins works with KDE 2, Nautilus and various other virtual window managers that put a big desktop window over the root window. It will not work with CDE. Please be aware however that the penguins will erase any desktop icons as they walk over them (this is not permanent - you can get the icons back by moving a window over them). This is a difficult problem to solve without modifying the nautilus and kdesktop programs that actually draw the icons.

Here are some screenshots from version 1.2; click on the images to enlarge:

Download XPenguins 2.1 (28 May 2001)

Download XPenguins Themes 0.2 (7 May 2001)

The themes are `The Simpsons', `Sonic the Hedgehog' and `Winnie the Pooh'. They were created by Robin Hogan from animated gifs found on the web. Therefore the license/copyright situation is somewhat uncertain and so I am distributing them separately. An alternative theme may be invoked using (for example)
xpenguins --theme "The Simpsons".

Linux RPMs xpenguins_themes-0.2-1.noarch.rpm xpenguins_themes-0.2-1.src.rpm

Tarball xpenguins_themes-0.2.tar.gz To install, either unpack this file in the system data directory (/usr/share/xpenguins) or in your own XPenguins data directory ($HOME/.xpenguins).

Download XPenguins Applet 0.9beta1 (30 October 2000)

Development plans

• Add new themes.
• Make the GNOME applet themeable (nearly done).
• Penguins jump up and down when you get new mail?
• Penguins talk to each other with little speech bubbles? The conversation would be entirely user-configurable of course.

Other root-window amusements

• xsheep
• xsnow
• xsimpsons (an xpenguins derivative)

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