HomeAboutBlogTutorialTernimal – Show Animated Lifeform in Your Linux Terminal

Ternimal – Show Animated Lifeform in Your Linux Terminal

[‘

n

Ternimal (not terminal, yes, we also read it as terminal the first time) is a simple, very flexible program that simulates an animated lifeform in your terminal using Unicode block symbols. It simply colors distance fields from a segment of a meandering path.

n

It works in most Linux terminal emulators and with most monospaced fonts, and has been tested on Linux (almost all terminal emulators render ternimal flawlessly), Mac OS as well as Windows.

n

Read Also: Impress Your Friends with This Fake Hollywood Hacker Terminal

n

Install Ternimal in Linux Systems

n

Ternimal has no dependencies apart from the Rust Standard Library (>= 1.20) must be installed, at which point Ternimal can be built with as shown.

n

$ git clone https://github.com/p-e-w/ternimal.gitrn$ cd ternimalrn$ rustc -O ternimal.rsrn

n

After building it, you can start using ternimal to display different colored animated lifeforms such as snakes, the rainbow, multiple disconnected entities moving in a coordinated fashion and more.

n

Next, to run ternimal like any other command on your system, move the executable built above, into a directory in your PATH environment variable (for example ~/bin/).

n

$ mkdir ~/bintt#create bin in your home folder if it doesn’t exist.rn$ cp ternimal ~/bin rn

n

The following are just a few examples of what ternimal can do.

n

Swarm

n

The following command will display a swarm, you can terminate it by pressing [Ctrl+C].

n

$ ternimal length=600 thickness=0,4,19,0,0rn

n

Animated Swarm in Linux Terminal
n

Anaconda

n

This command will display an animated snake.

n

$ ternimal length=100 thickness=1,4,1,0,0 radius=6,12 gradient=0:#666600,0.5:#00ff00,1:#003300rn

n

Animated Snake in Linux Terminal
n

Rainbow

n

And the following command will display a thick rainbow.

n

$ ternimal length=20 thickness=70,15,0,1,0 padding=10 radius=5 gradient=0.03:#ffff00,0.15:#0000ff,0.3:#ff0000,0.5:#00ff00rn

n

Animated Rainbow in Linux Terminal
As the developer put it right, “from a practical perspective, the program is not very useful. It does, however, contain quite a bit of cool technology and math”.n

Ternimal Github repository: https://github.com/p-e-w/ternimal

n

Ternimal is just one of those Linux fun terminal programs for exercising your brain (or possibly eyes); after working on a command-line for a long period of time, you can call up one of those ternimals (especially a swarm) and just gaze at it. Use the feedback form below to share your thoughts about it.

n

‘]