Who loves eye candy? Don’t be shy — you can raise both hands!!
Linux Candy is a series of articles covering interesting eye candy software. We’re only featuring open source software in this series.
If you spend all day embroiled in data science, getting up to speed on new-fangled programming languages, or sit in countless boring meetings wishing you were elsewhere, you’ll definitely want some light relief at the end of the day. And what better way by making your desktop environment a bit more fun.
You might have heard of cowsay, software that generates ASCII pictures of a cow with a message. cowsay isn’t limited to cow depictions, it also shows other animals, including Tux the Penguin.
yosay is a command-line tool and library that generates an ASCII picture with a message. It’s billed as software which is like cowsay but with less cow.
Installation
We evaluated yosay with the Ubuntu 24.10 and Manjaro distributions. Manjaro is an Arch-based distro. Searching for a package in Pamac (Manjaro’s GUI package manager) drew a blank. We reverted to a manual approach.
There’s not much to talk about here. We installed the CLI program with the command:
$ npm install --global yosay
In Operation
Here’s a few examples of the output.
We can tell Yeoman what to say.
Summary
yosay is harmless fun. There’s not much more to say really.
At the time of publication of this article, the project has attracted over 200 GitHub stars.
The options are displayed below.
Website: github.com/yeoman/yosay
Support:
Developer: Sindre Sorhus
License: BSD-2-Clause License
yosay is written in JavaScript. Learn JavaScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Linux Candy | |
|---|---|
| ASCIIQuarium | Embrace marine life from the terminal with beautiful ASCII art |
| ASCII Art Converter | A small utility that converts images into ASCII art |
| BobRossQuotes | Collection of quotes from Bob Ross |
| Boxes | Command line ASCII boxes |
| Buoh | Online strips comics reader |
| cacafire | Color ASCII fire |
| catclock | xclock with an enhanced cat mode |
| cbonsai | Generate bonsai trees in the terminal |
| christmasfetch | Festive cheer on the desktop |
| chucknorris | Chuck Norris jokes in your terminal |
| cornyjokes | Corny jokes for the terminal |
| CMatrix | ncurses program that simulates the display from “The Matrix” |
| ctree | A Christmas tree right on your terminal |
| eDEX-UI | Sci-fi computer terminal emulator and system monitor |
| emoj | Simple tool that to find suitable emojis for pasting to your clipboard |
| Emote | Modern popup emoji picker |
| Evolvotron | Interactive generative art |
| Fantascene | Dynamic wallpaper changer |
| Fondo | Find beautiful wallpapers from Unsplash |
| gti | Typo-based curio inspired by Steam Locomotive |
| Hollywood | Fill your console with Hollywood melodrama technobabble |
| linuxwave | Generate music from the entropy of Linux |
| lolcat | Rainbows and unicorns |
| No More Secrets | Recreates the data decryption effect from the Sneakers movie |
| nook | Plays Animal Crossing hourly themes on the hour |
| nyancat | Terminal-based Pop Tart Cat Animation |
| oneko | Animal chasing fun |
| pipes.sh | Animated pipes terminal screensaver |
| ponysay | cowsay reimplemention for ponies |
| projectM | Music visualizer originally based on Milkdrop |
| pscircle | A different take on the venerable ps command |
| PyBonsai | Generates procedural ASCII art trees |
| pyjokes | One line jokes for programmers |
| Pywal | Generate color schemes on the fly |
| Relaxator | Relax to soothing sounds |
| Rusty Aquarium | Monitoring by visualization |
| Steam Locomotive | C program written in 295 lines. It's harmless fun |
| Ternimal | Animated lifeform in the terminal |
| terminal-parrot | Party parrot time |
| tetris | Tile-matching puzzle video game in your terminal |
| Variety | Wallpaper manager with many desktops and wallpaper sources |
| WallGen | Generate HQ poly wallpapers with a few arguments. |
| WallpaperDownloader | Download, change, and manage wallpapers |
| xcowsay | Displays a cow on your desktop with message |
| XDecorations | Add some festive cheer to your desktop |
| XScreenSaver | Framework and collection of screensavers |
| yosay | Like cowsay but with less cow |