moin, moin, I've heard it's possible to make a copy of what's going out to the video card via the command line, e.g. scriptable :). I don't remember what the /dev/thingy was, though that enabled this. This was long before I ever heard of the framebuffer driver, but doesn't mean that it didn't involve it. Anyway, anyone know what I'm talking about and how to make a copy of what's coming up on the screen in both terminal and X mode? Part 2 is that this picture isn't exactly jpg or png, so how does one then convert it to something displayable in a common graphics program. Eventual goal is to shove stuff in html and print. Some of this is from before the OS is installed, so xgrab and friends aren't great answers. danke, der.hans -- # der.hans@LuftHans.com home.pages.de/~lufthans/ www.OpNIX.com # Magic is science unexplained. - der.hans