GLava

What GLava is

GLava is a free, configurable OpenGL audio spectrum visualizer for X11 on Linux. Its included visualizer modules offer bars, radial bars, a graph, a waveform, and a circle-style display. It can run as a desktop window or widget with EWMH-compliant window managers, though behavior varies by manager. Configuration uses GLSL directives and shader code, allowing users to adjust nearly every behavior. GLava requires PulseAudio for audio input and can also read MPD audio through FIFO output. A compile-time OBS plugin can render it directly into an OBS scene, but there are limitations involving EGL-based OBS builds and GLFW builds of GLava. FFT computation runs on the CPU, and the visualizer halts when obscured to avoid unnecessary resource use. Its --pipe feature passes simple runtime values to shader sources. The project provides source-build instructions and identifies packages for Arch Linux, NixOS, and openSUSE. GLava is licensed under GPLv3, with MIT-origin notices for specified source components; the project points users to GitHub Issues for support.