We are having fun on the Linux terminal today and creating some ASCII art with free and open-source software.
Software used:
- My favorite Linux distro is Ubuntu, ubuntu.com
- Cowsay
- Pv
- Lolcat
Cowsay
Cowsay is a program that generates ASCII art pictures of a cow with a message. It can also generate pictures using pre-made images of other animals, such as Tux the Penguin, the Linux mascot, etc.
Install cowsay
sudo apt install cowsay
Pv
pv is a terminal-based (command-line based) tool in Linux that allows us for the monitoring of data being sent through pipe. We can use pv to animate the text like ChatGPT.
Install pv
sudo apt install pv
Lolcat
Lolcat is a command-line utility that is primarily used to display text in rainbow colors in a Linux terminal; making it visually appealing.
Install lolcat
sudo apt install lolcat
Putting it all together
Now let's combine these programs and create some ASCII Art.
cowsay -f dragon 'hello from the linux terminal' | pv -qL 200 | lolcat