24 Funniest Commands to Try in the Linux Terminal

Linux has a rich collection of commands, and while many of them are powerful and useful for various tasks, there are also some funny and whimsical commands that you can try out for amusement.

1. sl Command (Steam Locomotive)

You might be aware of the command ls command, which is used frequently to view the contents of a directory but because of miss-typing sometimes you would result in ‘sl‘.

The sl command is to playfully simulate a train moving across your terminal when you accidentally type “sl” instead of “ls” (a common mistype).

Install sl Command

$ sudo apt install sl         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install sl         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/sl  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add sl             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S sl           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install sl      [On OpenSUSE]    

After installation, you can try running the sl command by simply typing.

$ sl
sl Command in Linux
sl Command in Linux

2. telehack Command

The telehack is a website that provides a text-based interface resembling a command-line environment, where you can interact with various commands, explore simulated systems, play text-based games, read articles, and even participate in a simulated storyline.

Go to the telehack website, and type the following command.

$ starwars
View Starwars in Linux
View Starwars in Linux

3. fortune Command

The fortune command is a fun command that is used to display a random quote, a witty saying, or a fortune message.

Install fortune Command

$ sudo apt install fortune         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install fortune         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/fortune  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add fortune             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S fortune           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install fortune      [On OpenSUSE]    

After installation, you can try running the fortune command by simply typing.

$ fortune
Show Quotes in Command Line
Show Quotes in Command Line

4. rev Command

The rev command is used to reverse the order of characters in each line of a given input. It reads the input from either standard input or from files and outputs the reversed lines.

To reverse the characters in a file, use the following command.

$ rev tecmint.txt
Reverse Words in Linux
Reverse Words in Linux

5. factor Command

The factor command is used to factorize a given integer into its prime factors. It calculates the prime factors of the specified number and displays them on the standard output.

$ factor 5
Calculates Prime Factors of Number
Calculates Prime Factors of Number

6. Nested Loop in Bash

This is not a command, but a nested loop in Bash that prints a multiplication table from 1 to 12. It uses two variables, i and j, to iterate through the numbers and calculates their product.

$ for i in {1..12}; do for j in $(seq 1 $i); do echo -ne $i×$j=$((i*j))\\t;done; echo;done

Here is an explanation of the command:

for i in {1..12}; do               # Outer loop iterating from 1 to 12
    for j in $(seq 1 $i); do       # Inner loop iterating from 1 to the current outer loop value
        echo -ne "$i×$j=$((i*j))\t";    # Print the multiplication expression and result
    done
    echo;                         # Move to the next line after each inner loop
done

When you run this command in the terminal, it will generate the following output.

Prints Multiplication Table in Linux
Prints Multiplication Table in Linux

7. cowsay Command

The cowsay command is used to generate an ASCII art representation of a cow or other animals with speech or thought bubbles containing a customizable message.

Install cowsay Command

$ sudo apt install cowsay         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install cowsay         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/cowsay  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add cowsay             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S cowsay           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install cowsay      [On OpenSUSE]    

After installation, you can try running the cowsay command by simply typing.

$ cowsay I Love Tecmint.com
$ cowsay I Love Linux
Generate ASCII Art of Text
Generate ASCII Art of Text

To combine the fortune with the cowsay command to display a random fortune message using a pipe (|) to pass the output of one command to be the input of another command.

In the below example, the output of the ‘fortune‘ command acts as an input of the ‘cowsay‘ command.

$ fortune | cowsay 
Display Random Fortune Message
Display Random Fortune Message

xcowsay is a graphical program that response similar to cowsay but in a graphical manner, that generates an animated speech bubble with a customizable message, usually featuring a cow or other characters, on the desktop.

Install xcowsay Command

$ sudo apt install xcowsay         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install xcowsay         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/xcowsay  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add xcowsay             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S xcowsay           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install xcowsay      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once xcowsay is installed, you can launch it by running:

$ xcowsay I Love Tecmint.com
Show Animated ASCII Art in Linux
Show Animated ASCII Art on Linux

8. yes Command

The yes command prints a continuous stream of the specified string or text repeatedly until terminated, which is often used in scripts or command-line operations that require automated or repeated input of a specific value.

$ yes I Love Tecmint.com
Prints Continuous Stream of Text
Prints Continuous Stream of Text

9. toilet Command

The toilet command generates visually appealing ASCII art text-based banners or large letters using various fonts in the terminal.

Install toilet Command

$ sudo apt install toilet         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install toilet         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/toilet  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add toilet             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S toilet           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install toilet      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once the toilet is installed, you run the command with the text you want to convert into an ASCII banner.

$ toilet TecMint.com 
Generate Text Banner in Linux
Generate Text Banner in Linux

If you want to print the banner in a large font, you can run:

$ toilet -f big TecMint.com
Print Large Text Banner in Linux
Print Large Text Banner on Linux

10. cmatrix Command

You might have seen the Hollywood movie ‘Matrix‘ and would be fascinated with the power, Neo was provided with, to see anything and everything in the Matrix or you might think of an animation that looks like Matrix’s desktop.

Then you should use a cmatrix command that displays an animated matrix-like rain of text characters on your terminal, similar to the “Matrix” movie.

Install cmatrix Command

$ sudo apt install cmatrix         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install cmatrix         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/cmatrix  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add cmatrix             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S cmatrix           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install cmatrix      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once cmatrix is installed, you can run the command that displays a full of cascading green characters resembling the falling code from the “Matrix” movie.

$ cmatrix
Show Animated Matrix Like Text in Linux
Show Animated Matrix Like Text in Linux

11. oneko Command

OK, so you believe that the mouse pointer of Linux is the same silly black/white pointer where no animation lies then I fear you could be wrong.

The “oneko” is a package that will attach a “Jerry” with your mouse pointer and moves along with your pointer.

Install oneko Command

$ sudo apt install oneko         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install oneko         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/oneko  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add oneko             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S oneko           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install oneko      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once oneko is installed, you run the command to see a small animated cat on your screen.

$ oneko
Show Animated Mouse Cat in Linux
Show Animated Mouse Cat on Linux

Once you close the terminal from which oneko was run, Jerry will disappear, nor will start at start-up. You can add the application to start up and continue enjoying.

12. Fork Bomb

A fork bomb is a type of malicious code or command that can cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition by rapidly and exponentially creating child processes, which exploits the “fork” system call in the operating system.

It can also cause severe disruption, loss of data, or damage to the system, which might make you unresponsive, and you might need to reboot the machine to regain control.

To check the power of the fork command you should try it once, but all at your own risk, close and save all other programs and files before running a fork bomb.

$ :(){ :|: & };:

Let’s break down how this fork bomb works:

  • :(){ ... } – This defines a function named ":" (colon) without any arguments.
  • :|: – This calls the function recursively by piping its output to another instance of the function.
  • & – This puts the command in the background, allowing it to run concurrently.
  • ;: – This executes the function again after the initial invocation, causing it to continue indefinitely.

13. while Command

The following while command is a bash script that provides you with a colored date and time in a stylized ASCII art format using the toilet. It uses a while loop to repeatedly execute the commands and includes a 1-second delay between each iteration.

$ while true; do echo "$(date '+%D %T' | toilet -f term -F border --gay)"; sleep 1; done

Here’s an explanation of the command:

while true; do                                   # Start an infinite loop
    echo "$(date '+%D %T' | toilet -f term -F border --gay)";   # Print the formatted date and time using toilet
    sleep 1;                                    # Delay for 1 second
done
Prints Current Date and Time in Linux
Prints Current Date and Time in Linux

The above script when modified with the following command, will give similar output but with a little difference, check it in your terminal.

$ while true; do clear; echo "$(date '+%D %T' | toilet -f term -F border --gay)"; sleep 1; done

14. espeak Command

The espeak is a text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis command that converts text input into spoken words in various languages and voices.

Install espeak Command

$ sudo apt install espeak         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install espeak         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/espeak  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add espeak             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S espeak           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install espeak      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once espeak is installed, you run the command with the text you want to be spoken.

$ espeak "I Love TecMint.com"

15. aafire Command

The aafire is a fun command that displays visually appealing ASCII art animation of a fire effect in the terminal using ASCII characters.

Install aafire Command

$ sudo apt install libaa-bin     [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install aalib         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/aalib  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add aalib             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S aalib           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install aalib      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once aafire is installed, you run the command to see a fire animation in your terminal.

$ aafire
Show Fire in Linux
Show Fire in Linux

16. bb Command

The bb is a simple command-line ASCII art demo that displays an animated ASCII art representation of a bouncing ball on the terminal screen.

Install bb Command

$ sudo apt install bb     [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install bb         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/bb  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add bb             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S bb           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install bb      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once bb is installed, you run the command to see a visual effect of a ball bouncing around the terminal screen.

$ bb

17. curl Command

Won’t it be an awesome feeling for you if you can update your Twitter status from the command line in front of your friend and they seem impressed?.

To post a status to Twitter using the curl command, you need to use the Twitter API’s POST endpoint for creating a tweet as shown.

$ curl -X POST -u "YourBearerToken:" -d "status=Your%20status%20message" "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/update.json"

18. ASCIIquarium

ASCIIquarium is an entertaining perl script that displays an animated aquarium in ASCII art format directly in your Linux terminal. It creates a simulation of underwater life with fish, plants, and other elements.

On Ubuntu or Debian-based systems, you can install ASCIIquarium with the following commands.

First, you need to install the Term::Animation module as shown.

$ sudo apt install libcurses-perl
$ sudo apt install libcurses-perl
$ wget https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/K/KB/KBAUCOM/Term-Animation-2.5.tar.gz
$ tar xzf Term-Animation-2.5.tar.gz
$ cd Term-Animation-2.5/
$ perl Makefile.PL
$ make 
$ sudo make install

Next, install ASCIIquarium with the following commands.

$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://www.robobunny.com/projects/asciiquarium/asciiquarium.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf asciiquarium.tar.gz
$ cd asciiquarium_1.1/
$ sudo cp asciiquarium /usr/local/bin
$ sudo chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/asciiquarium

Finally, run “asciiquarium” or “/usr/local/bin/asciiquarium” in the terminal without quotes and be a part of the magic that will be taking place in front of your eyes.

$ asciiquarium
Show ASCIIquarium in Linux
Show ASCIIquarium in Linux

19. Funny Linux Man Pages

Funny man pages, also known as “man pages with attitude,” are entertaining versions of the traditional Linux man pages, as they don’t offer abt serious or practical information, they are meant to bring a smile to your face.

Install Funny Man Pages

$ sudo apt install funny-manpages         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install funny-manpages         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/funny-manpages  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add funny-manpages             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S funny-manpages           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install funny-manpages      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once funny-manpages is installed, you can have access to the funny-man pages of the command you want to view.

$ man baby
$ man celibacy
$ man condom
$ man date
$ man echo
$ man flame
$ man flog
$ man gong
Linux Funny Man Pages
Linux Funny Man Pages

20. pv Command

You might have seen the simulating text in movies, which appears as if it is being typed in real-time. Won’t it be nice, if you can have such an effect in your terminal?

This can be achieved, by installing the pv command (pipe viewer), which is used to monitor the progress of data through a pipeline.

Install pv Command

$ sudo apt install pv         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install pv         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/pv  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add pv             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S pv           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install pv      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once, the pv command is installed successfully on your system, let’s try to run the following one-liner command to see the real-time text effect on the screen.

$ echo "Tecmint[dot]com is a community of Linux Nerds and Geeks" | pv -qL 10 
Show Animated Text in Terminal
Show Animated Text in the Terminal

The q option means ‘quiet‘, no output information, and option L means the limit of transfer of bytes per second. The number value can be adjusted in either direction (must be an integer) to get the desired simulation of text.

21. rig Command

The rig short for “Random Identity Generator” is a command that is used to generate random fake identities for testing, simulation, or other purposes.

Install rig Command

$ sudo apt install rig         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install rig         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/rig  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add rig             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S rig           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install rig      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once installed, you can use the rig command to generate random identities.

$ rig
Generate Fake Identities in Linux
Generate Fake Identities in Linux

22. aview Command

The aview command converts images into ASCII art and displays them in the terminal. To use the aview command, you need to have it installed on your system.

$ sudo apt install aview         [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install aview         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/aview  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add aview             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S aview           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install aview      [On OpenSUSE]    

I’ve got an image named ‘actress.jpg‘ (guess the actress) in my current working directory and I want to view it on the terminal in ASCII format.

$ aview actress.jpg
View Image in Linux Terminal
View Image in Linux Terminal

23. xeyes Command

Earlier, we introduced a command ‘oneko‘ which attaches Jerry with a mouse pointer and keeps on chasing it. A similar program ‘xeyes‘ is a graphical program and as soon as you fire the command you will see two monster eyes chasing your movement.

$ sudo apt install x11-apps     [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install xeyes         [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/xeyes  [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add xeyes             [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S xeyes           [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install xeyes      [On OpenSUSE]    

Once installed, run:

$ xeyes
Show Pair of Eyes in Linux
Show Pair of Eyes in Linux

24. Linux Tweaks

It is time for you to have some one-liner Linux tweaks to have some fun in the terminal.

$ world

bash: world: not found
$ touch girls\ boo** 

touch: cannot touch `girls boo**': Permission denied
$ nice man woman

No manual entry for woman
$ ^How did the sex change operation go?^ 

bash: :s^How did the sex change operation go?^ : substitution failed
$ %blow 

bash: fg: %blow: no such job
$ make love 

make: *** No rule to make target `love'.  Stop.
$ [ whereis my brain?      
              
sh: 2: [: missing ]
$ % man: why did you get a divorce? 

man:: Too many arguments.
$ % !:say, what is saccharine? 

Bad substitute.
$ \(- 

bash: (-: command not found

Linux is naughty – if you know what I mean…:)

$ who | grep -i blonde | date; cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep

There are certain others but these don’t work on all the systems and hence not included in this article. Some of them are man dog, filter, banner, etc.

Have fun, you can say me thanks later :) yup, your comment is highly appreciated which encourages us to write more. Tell us which command you liked the most. Stay tuned I will be back soon with another article worth reading.

Avishek
A Passionate GNU/Linux Enthusiast and Software Developer with over a decade in the field of Linux and Open Source technologies.

Each tutorial at TecMint is created by a team of experienced Linux system administrators so that it meets our high-quality standards.

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209 thoughts on “24 Funniest Commands to Try in the Linux Terminal”

  1. Love this post! But I have some suggestions below.

    I tried to install all six commands on my Arch Linux distro, but most were not available on the official repository.

    Toilet, Rig, and Aview are available on user repository. They can be installed using “yay -S toilet rig aview” or git clone.

    Pv and cowsay are available on the official repository using command “pacman -S pv cowsay“.

    To install xeyes, use “pacman -S xorg-xeyes” instead.

    Thank you for inspiring Linux geeks!

    Reply
  2. Wow, thank you for sharing these cool tips. I really love’em

      _____   _                       _                                      
    |_   _| | |__     __ _   _ __   | | __            _   _    ___    _   _ 
      | |   | '_ \   / _` | | '_ \  | |/ /           | | | |  / _ \  | | | |
      | |   | | | | | (_| | | | | | |   <            | |_| | | (_) | | |_| |
      |_|   |_| |_|  \__,_| |_| |_| |_|\_\____   _____\__, |  \___/   \__,_|
                                        |_____| |_____|___/
    
    Reply
  3. Great article. I was able to use this on my WLS 1 Linux Ubuntu installation on my Celeron ASUS laptop which is older than the hills but still chugs along. The installation went very well and the Linux environment is a joy to work with (unlike the rest of Windoze 10).

    Reply
  4. in the pv example, change the ‘quite‘ to ‘quiet

    ‘Note: The ‘q‘ option means ‘quite’.

    keep up the good work !

    Reply
  5. I made an sh file to install asciiquarium if anybody wants to use it, here is the code:

    apt install tar
    apt install wget
    apt install make
                                                                                                                                            
    apt install libcurses-perl
    cd /tmp
    wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/K/KB/KBAUCOM/Term-Animation-2.4.tar.gz
    tar -zxvf Term-Animation-2.4.tar.gz
    cd Term-Animation-2.4/
    perl Makefile.PL && make && make test
    make install
                                                                                                                                            
    cd /tmp
    wget http://www.robobunny.com/projects/asciiquarium/asciiquarium.tar.gz --no-check-certificate
    tar -zxvf asciiquarium.tar.gz
    cd asciiquarium_1.1/
    cp asciiquarium /usr/local/bin
    chmod 0755 /usr/local/bin/asciiquarium
    
    Reply
  6. Extremely useful list! It’s providing a good foundation for expanding knowledge of Linux commands. Kudos to your effort for writing the article. Very useful. Thank you.

    Reply
  7. Brother, the sl command is not working.

    I have installed it, but when i execute this command it says “command not found”.

    I tried updating repository but nothing much happened…

    Please help.

    Reply
  8. It says to me:
    There was a problem importing one of the Python modules
    required to run yum. The error leading to this problem was:

    pycurl: libcurl link-time version (7.50.1) is older than compile-time version (7.53.1)

    Please install a package which provides this module, or
    verify that the module is installed correctly.

    It’s possible that the above module doesn’t match the
    current version of Python, which is:
    2.7.12 (default, Jun 28 2016, 06:57:42) [GCC]

    If you cannot solve this problem yourself, please go to
    the yum faq at:
    http://yum.baseurl.org/wiki/

    :(

    Reply
    • @Amit,

      The command cmatrix not included in the default repositories, you have to enable EPEL repository to install it.

      # yum install epel-release
      # yum install cmatrix
      
      Reply
  9. Thanks ! this worked perfect !

    # wget https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
    # ls *.rpm
    

    To install epel-release-7-5.noarch.rpm, type:

    $ sudo yum install epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
    
    Reply
  10. Great Article, Even so I tried to install them all, i just have

    [root@server01 ~]# yum install cowsay
    Loaded plugins: langpacks, product-id, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager
    No package cowsay available.
    Error: Nothing to do
    
    [root@server01 ~]# cowsay I Love nix
    bash: cowsay: command not found...
    
    [root@server01 ~]# fortune | cowsay
    
    bash: cowsay: command not found...
    bash: fortune: command not found...
    
    [root@server01 ~]# yum install xcowsay
    Loaded plugins: langpacks, product-id, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager
    No package xcowsay available.
    Error: Nothing to do
    
    [root@server01 ~]# yum install cowthink
    Loaded plugins: langpacks, product-id, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager
    No package cowthink available.
    

    So I have incorrect registration or repo?

    Reply
    • @Pablo,

      You need to enable EPEL Repository on the system, in order to install these funny commands in Linux.

      # yum install epel-release
      # yum install cowsay
      
      Reply
    • I’m getting the output when I put arguments but when I don’t put arguments, I don’t get the output. However I’m getting invalid output for non-positive integers but for positive integers, I’m not getting anything.

      Reply
          • @Hitesh,

            Sorry for trouble, it’s our mistake we forgot to mention the number as option while using factor command, for example:

            # factor 5
            # factor 10
            

            Will display all the possible factors of a given number. You must specify a number along with factor command…

  11. root@kali:~# apt-get install funny-manpages
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package funny-manpages is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source
    However the following packages replace it:
    lintian

    E: Package ‘funny-manpages’ has no installation candidate

    Reply
  12. Hi nice work. I liked the linux tweaks that you had mentioned. Anyways I was not able to install bb command on my fedora-22 OS; it was giving a comment ‘bb’ package not found. Please you give me some idea for installing it.

    Reply
    • @Aargon,

      No idea, actually never tried these Linux funny tools on Zsh shell, but I think you right, some of might not work on zsh shell, but still I think you should give a try each and test it..

      Reply
  13. Hey Hi,

    nicely written but there’s a typo…

    # apt-get insatll cowthink
    

    It was written insatll … instead of “install”

    Reply
    • Great Article, I laughed way too much at this one:

      % man: why did you get a divorce?
      man:: Too many arguments.

      Reply
  14. Ya know… My boss back in the late 80’s would say that games are what truly sell computers. He was right!

    I now say… If you’re trying to sell the Linux CLI to a would be Windoze admin that you’re trying to nudge into the “light”, this is what the doctor ordered! Just have these all loaded up so the GUI genius will feel more at home. Oh! Just watch while they struggle to understand how to type again and unglue their right hand from the mouse—painful to see, but fun nonetheless!

    Reply
  15. These are some amazing commands, was looking for cmatrix but got a whole lot more. Just wanted to mention the odd typo for install as “insatll”. Keep up the good work.

    Reply
    • Thanks for your feedback @Dhaval Simaria,
      Good to know you found it knowledgeable and funny.
      Keep connected for more such posts.

      Reply
  16. Lol
    that was amazing man
    specially last part:
    “Linux is sexy: who | grep -i blonde | date; cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep”
    :)))))

    Reply
  17. Thanks for posting this! Who said Linux folks don’t have a sense of humor.

    Since I found Tecmint, I just keep coming back for more.

    Very good site!

    Reply
  18. when i m using the aview command i m getting this error:–

    Failed to convert file format to PNM by both convert and anytopnm
    Invalid magic-not p?m family format

    Reply
  19. hello
    thanks for your post
    please give me reposity or rpm package for each install command
    i trye to install sl but …

    No package sl available.

    thanks a gain

    Reply
    • morteza,

      search what package provide ‘sl’ for your distribution. you may try yum search sl

      Please let us know what distribution you are using, if the above don’t succeed!

      Reply
  20. lol if you run aafire and then leave it open go back into terminal and use the sl command a bunch of times and then close aafire a bunch of trains go by

    Reply
  21. hey Avishek …….In between of serious complex script in Linux….these Cool interesting cmds are relaxing & fun fillled….

    Thanks for sharing…:-D

    Reply
  22. Try while true; do echo “$(date | toilet -f term -F border –gay)”; sleep 1; done

    It gives you date in words and time

    Reply
  23. # aptitude install pv dialog

    # echo “Hii Guyz… Presenting a New Freak Again…” | pv -qL 10

    & to show you are busy in office try this:
    # for i in {0..600}; do echo $i; sleep 1; done | dialog –gauge “Installing Patches…” 6 40

    Reply
  24. For ubuntu when you want to install stuff, instead of lets say I want to install cowsay I’ll type apt-get install cowsay. In ubuntu its different. Its sudo apt-get install cowsay.

    Reply
  25. Hi…

    I am new to linux and I am using CentOS release 5.9. Can anyone pls guide me on how to make these commands work on the CentOS.

    Reply
    • Dear shoaib,

      su -c ‘yum list Name_of_Package’

      to search for package cowsay

      su -c ‘yum list cowsay’

      it will list the package name that provides cowsay. Install that package and you are done.

      Reply
  26. I’m assuming that the script is supposed to print a multiplication table (or at least a partial one) . This one prints a full table:

    for i in {1..12}; do for j in {1..12}; do echo -ne $i*$j=$((i*j))\\t;done; echo;done

    Reply
  27. when i try asciiquarium it abords at line 42 as it cant locate Term/Animation

    dont know what i did wrong but probably my own fault :P

    further all the other stuff is awesome, thanks for sharing :)

    Reply
    • It is a Perl script. You’re probably missing Term::Animation. You could see if your distribution has the package built for you and install it. Otherwise try the following:

      perl -MCPAN -e shell
      install Term::Animation

      That should install it. If you haven’t ran perl -MCPAN -e shell before you’ll need to go through CPAN setup. Just take the defaults and then run install Term::Animation.

      Reply
  28. Thanks man for sharing. very funny.
    In my Debian I have put cowsay+fortunes with offensive quotes :)

    # vim /etc/bash.bashrc

    and add at the end of the file.will open a new quote everytime you open terminal:

    # Random Animal Effect
    dir=’/usr/share/cowsay/cows/’
    file=`/bin/ls -1 “$dir” | sort –random-sort | head -1`
    cow=$(echo “$file” | sed -e “s/\.cow//”)

    # Display quote with Random Animal
    /usr/games/fortune /usr/share/games/fortunes | cowsay -f $cow

    Reply
  29. Great post, thank you. ‘Twas a very entertaining diversion!

    Also — one of my favourites is “ddate”….not sure if it’s available on all distros?

    Reply
  30. @Nerdgurl, why on earth would you do this in emacs?

    They are all terminal commands, open your terminal and install the programs as instructed and then type in the command as instructed like you would run any other command in terminal and there you go… your name is rather deceiving because any nerd would know how to run a terminal command.

    Reply
  31. i liked this the most here:

    root@tecmint:~# make love

    make: *** No rule to make target `love’. Stop.

    thanks for kicking of imagination power of us nix users.

    Reply
  32. Obviously very good….Want to learn something more interesting….Waiting to see more interesting something.

    Reply
  33. For f18, I had to use fortune-mod instead of fortune. Probably same for f19. Also yum install works for asciiquarium instead of downloading from source, however no toilet or cmatrix…

    Reply

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