Linux command line screensavers?

**daweefolk** · May 9th, 2011

I know already of asciiquarium, but I'm wondering what other 'screensavers' exist for the command line, and if there is a 'manager' such as xscreensaver.

**Toz** · May 9th, 2011

How about:

Code:

tr -c "[:digit:]""[!@#$%^&*()_+]" " " < /dev/urandom | dd cbs=$COLUMNS conv=lcase,unblock | GREP_COLOR="1;32" grep --color "[^ ]"

**zitch** · May 9th, 2011

Originally Posted by Toz

How about:

Code:

tr -c "[:digit:]""[!@#$%^&*()_+]" " " < /dev/urandom | dd cbs=$COLUMNS conv=lcase,unblock | GREP_COLOR="1;32" grep --color "[^ ]"

Why don't you explain to the rest of us what this is supposed to do. Frankly, I see "dd" in there and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. I don't see any "sudo" commands in there, but still...

Honestly, this may actually be benign, but the original poster (and anybody else looking for an ascii-based screensaver) might want to know that this is safe before running it.

UPDATE: I don't mean to be accusatory or anything. Just don't want to see someone to lose data because of a bad joke.

**Toz** · May 9th, 2011

Something a colleague showed me a few years back - basically a matrix-like screen saver. As I understand it.....

Code:

tr -c "[:digit:]""[!@#$%^&*()_+]" " " < /dev/urandom

randomizes a string of characters

Code:

dd cbs=$COLUMNS conv=lcase,unblock

recodes the stream to the terminal such that:
- cbs = it converts terminal_width bytes at a time
- conv = it converts upper to lower case and replaces trailing spaces with a newline

Code:

GREP_COLOR="1;32" grep --color "[^ ]"

colours it green

**jerome1232** · May 9th, 2011

dd is just writing to standard output so there is no risk with that line, I went ahead and ran it, did about what I thought.

Kind of cool, I wonder if there's a way to get that run after x amount of inactivity. Could that be done in your bash profile?

**AlphaLexman** · May 9th, 2011

Interesting, could it work with a different font?
http://www.dafont.com/matrix-code-nfi.font

**daweefolk** · May 16th, 2011

Originally Posted by Toz

Something a colleague showed me a few years back - basically a matrix-like screen saver. As I understand it.....

Code:

tr -c "[:digit:]""[!@#$%^&*()_+]" " " < /dev/urandom

randomizes a string of characters

Code:

dd cbs=$COLUMNS conv=lcase,unblock

recodes the stream to the terminal such that:
- cbs = it converts terminal_width bytes at a time
- conv = it converts upper to lower case and replaces trailing spaces with a newline

Code:

GREP_COLOR="1;32" grep --color "[^ ]"

colours it green

I forgot to update, but I found another one- cmatrix.
And I am also interested in one starting if the terminal is inactive for x minutes, if it's possible.