Five Ways To Have Fun With The Command Line

Once in a while, you maybe wanna entertain yourself through all the updating, maintenance, and configuration tasks of being a system administrator. Linux has quite some popular programs, available in many repositories… so, here are five ways to have some fun while working at the command line!

sl

A train going through your terminal.

Installation: apt-get install sl or yum -y install sl

                                                      (@@) (  ) (@)  ( )  @@    ()    @     O     @     O      @
                                                     (   )
                                                 (@@@@)
                                              (    )

                                            (@@@)
                                         ====        ________                ___________
                                     _D _|  |_______/        /__I_I_____===__|_________|
                                      |(_)---  |   H/________/ |   |        =|___ ___|      _________________
                                      /     |  |   H  |  |     |   |         ||_| |_||     _|                /_____A
                                     |      |  |   H  |__--------------------| [___] |   =|                        |
                                     | ________|___H__/__|_____/[][]~/_______|       |   -|                        |
                                     |/ |   |-----------I_____I [][] []  D   |=======|____|________________________|_
                                   __/ =| o |=-~~/  /~~/  /~~/  /~~/ ____Y___________|__|__________________________|_
                                    |/-=|___|=   O=====O=====O=====O|_____/~/___/          |_D__D__D_|  |_D__D__D_|
                                     /_/      /__/  /__/  /__/  /__/      /_/               /_/   /_/    /_/   /_/

fortune

A random joke.

Installation: apt-get install fortune or yum install fortune

[email protected]:~# fortune
Q:  What's a light-year?
A:  One-third less calories than a regular year.

toilet

Generate ASCII art from the terminal.

Installation: apt-get install toilet or yum install toilet

[email protected]:~# toilet VULTR

 m    m m    m m     mmmmmmm mmmmm 
 "m  m" #    # #        #    #   "#
  #  #  #    # #        #    #mmmm"
  "mm"  #    # #        #    #   "m
   ##   "mmmm" #mmmmm   #    #    "

cmatrix

Run a Matrix program like they do in the movie.

Installation: apt-get install cmatrix

[email protected]:~# cmatrix

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This can cause heavy load on a server though, so make sure you don’t execute this in a production environment.

aafire

Set the command line terminal on fire!

Installation: apt-get install libaa-bin

[email protected]:~# aafire

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