Embrace the Christmas Season With a Log Fire and Rainstorm in Your Linux Terminal
Christmas is almost here, and in the Northern Hemisphere, nights are drawing in, the temperature’s dropping, and fuel prices aren’t getting any cheaper.
As the hoarfrost settles across your eyebrows and icy stalactites form from your nostrils, warm yourself with the light of a log fire in your terminal, or embrace the weather with a CLI rainstorm.
Why Would You Want a Roaring Fire in Your Terminal?
Even wizened old terminal dwellers occasionally like to get into the Christmas spirit. Even if you’re not religious, you’re able to cheer up a cold room with the virtual cracking wood and the heat emanating from your laboring CPU fans as you compile another project in a different terminal.
If you’ve guests to join you in a sing-along toroyalty-free Christmas music, while you pass around yourtech-themed secret Santa gifts, there’s no better background than a retro log fire to get everyone in the spirit.
And suppose your Scrooge-like nature and repeated calls to RTFM mean that no one comes to your party, or you end up with a trulyhorrible Microsoft Christmas sweater. In that case, your terminal can console you with suitably maudlin animations of raindrops falling in a puddle.
Install Fireplace and Puddle on Linux
Fireplace and Puddle both require ncurses to run. To install ncurses on Debian or a derivative distro:
To install ncurses on a Red Hat-related distribution:
For Fedora (22+):
ncurses is also available inthe Arch User Repository (AUR).
You can now clone the GitHub repo for Fireplace:
Once the operation is complete, move into the new directory with:
Then, compile Fireplace by running:
If you want to be able to run Fireplace from any location, you should also run:
The procedure for Puddle is virtually identical. First clone the Puddle repository:
Then, move into the new directory:
…and compile Puddle with:
Use Fireplace and Puddle to Set the Mood for the Festive Season!
Just as throwing a new log on a real fire will change the way it moves and alter the height of the flames from a feeble glow to a towering inferno, you could adjust the properties of your virtual fire by adding some arguments.
By default, Fireplace uses the “@” character to make its flames dance. You can specify the character of your choice using the-cswitch. For instance:
…will result in a roaring fire composed entirely of the letterF.
Unfortunately, Fireplace does not render Unicode characters, so we could not create a furnace composed of Christmas trees, snowmen, or snowflakes.
it’s possible to set the maximum temperature of the flames with the-tswitch. The default value is 10, and a higher value will give taller flames.
Douse the flames at any time with theqkey.
Puddle comes with a few more configuration options, and you can use-pto set the color options to either0for monochrome or1to suit your mood.
You can change the behavior of the virtual water, too.-dsets the damping factor, with a smaller damping factor meaning that ripples die out faster.-idetermines the rainfall intensity. Higher intensity means more raindrops per second.
We found that the following command creates an especially pleasing and slightly hypnotic effect:
Have Yourself a Happy Terminal-Based Christmas This Year
Christmas isn’t just about giving gifts, spending time with family, and showing off cool command-line tricks in your Linux terminal. For a truly great festive atmosphere, you need to get your neighbors supping the Christmas spirit, too. Why not light up the outside of your house with a Christmas-themed projector display?
Tired of putting up so many Christmas decorations on your house? These Christmas projector lights will definitely make decorating simple.
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