OpenRiot v7.4 — Lossless at Full Volume
“The best compression is the kind you can’t hear.” — The OpenRiot Crew, channeling every audio engineer ever
Release Overview
v7.4 compresses the entire visual layer without touching a pixel. Every background and lock screen in the repo has been converted from PNG to WebP at 95% quality. The result is visually identical to the originals at roughly one-fifth the file size.
| Asset Type | Before | After | Savings |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backgrounds (22 files) | ~148 MB | ~29 MB | ~80% |
| Lock screens (24 files) | ~144 MB | ~28 MB | ~80% |
| Total | ~283 MB | ~57 MB | ~226 MB |
That is not a typo. The wallpaper you stare at all day now loads
faster, clones faster, and takes up a fraction of the disk space.
The lock screen cache builder (openriot --build-lock-cache) has
been updated to accept .webp source files and rebuild
screen-resolution .png caches for i3lock as always. Runtime
behavior is unchanged — only the repo footprint shrank.
We also fixed a long-standing POSIX compatibility bug in the lock
screen cache builder. The ffmpeg batch path used read -d '',
a bashism that fails on OpenBSD’s /bin/sh (pdksh). It now uses a
standard while IFS= read -r f loop, so the fast path actually works
on every system instead of silently falling through to ImageMagick.
A new make convert target is available for future releases. Run it
to batch-convert any new .png assets to .webp at 95% quality.
🧾 Files Changed
| File | Nature of Change |
|---|---|
backgrounds/*.png |
Replaced with .webp equivalents |
Locked/*.png |
Replaced with .webp equivalents |
Makefile |
Added convert target; added to help text |
source/lock/cache.go |
Accepts .webp input; POSIX read fix |
docs/Agents-Lessons.md |
Added v7.3 lessons (VERSION, proposals, |
| one-change-at-a-time) |
🎵 What We’re Listening To
Same library. Same Grunge-Rock. Same Alkaline Trio. Same folder labeled “Cyberpunk” that may or may not contain synthwave. Now it all streams from a repo that is 226 megabytes lighter. Your SSD thanks you.
🗣️ Final Words
“I just wanted my dotfiles to fit on a 32GB USB stick. Now they”
“do, with room left for an entire season of something I can’t”
“name because I don’t have a streaming subscription.” — Same user, still honest
v7.4 is the release for people who notice file sizes. The backgrounds
look the same. The lock screens look the same. The only difference is
that git clone finishes before your coffee gets cold.
The make convert target means future wallpaper sets get the same
treatment automatically. Drop a .png into backgrounds/, run
make convert, and the WebP appears at 80% smaller with zero visual
cost.
Your disk is not infinite. Your bandwidth is not free. v7.4 treats both with respect.
— The OpenRiot Crew
“Your wallpaper just went on a diet.”