12 Funny Commands of Linux that can make you laugh

Do you ever know that Linux is not just for serious work for admins and professionals, but you can play word games, speak to your Linux terminal or create beautiful ASCII pictures etc.? Yes, Linux is really fun, if you know the correct commands. Let’s look at some of these commands that can bring a smile to your face instantly or which can be used at the end of a day-long hectic work to ease the pressure and bring some relief on to you, so that you can leave home in a good mood.

1) Get a Random Quote with fortune command

One can get random quotes and funny predictions with the help of the fortune command. But you need to have fortune package  installed in your system.

To install Fortune for system based on apt or aptitude:

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install fortune

To install Fortune for yum based systems like CentOS / RHEL / Fedora, run the beneath command

[root@linuxtechi ~]# yum install fortune*

Once the installation is completed run fortune command. Example is shown below

2) Rev Command

The “rev” command reverses any string provided to it.whenever Linux is installed is installed automatically.

[root@linuxtechi ~]# rev
LinuxTechi
ihceTxuniL
Linux Rocks
skcoR xuniL
Opensource World
dlroW ecruosnepO
LinuxMint Ultimate Desktop
potkseD etamitlU tniMxuniL

One can even create a file with a list of names and just provide the file name next to the rev command and all the names in the file will be reversed.

[root@linuxtechi ~]# rev rev.txt
ihceTxuniL
skcoR syawla xuniL
dlrow ecruosnepO fo enobkcab eht si xuniL
ihceTxuniL moob moob
[root@linuxtechi ~]#

3) Yes Command

The Yes Command will keep on displaying yourtext for n number of times, until you intervene to stop it (CTRL + C)

synatx :

 # yes <yourtext>

Example

[root@linuxtechi ~]# yes LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com
LinuxTechi.com^C
[root@linuxtechi ~]#

4) Turn Your Terminal into an Aquarium

Do you know that you can transform your linux system terminal into a beautiful sea aquarium with fishes and sea weeds? For that you need to install the term animator package, libcurses and  asciiaquarium package into your system.

To run the below steps successfully just make sure on your system ‘perl‘, ‘perl-Curses‘ and  ‘perl-devel‘ packages are installed

For yum based systems :

[root@linuxtechi ~]# yum install perl perl-devel perl-Curses

For Debian based systems

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install perl libcurses-perl

Follow the below steps to install and run this amazing Linux command:

First, make sure you’ve downloaded the term animator package

[root@linuxtechi ~]# wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/K/KB/KBAUCOM/Term-Animation-2.6.tar.gz

Install the package using below steps

[root@linuxtechi ~]# tar zxpvf Term-Animation-2.6.tar.gz
[root@linuxtechi ~]# cd Term-Animation-2.6
[root@linuxtechi Term-Animation-2.6]# perl Makefile.PL && make && make test
[root@linuxtechi Term-Animation-2.6]# make install

Note: In Case you are facing any issues while executing above steps then  we can  use cpan console to install “Term Animation” Package as shown below

cpan[1]> install Term::Animation

Finally download and install the asciiaquarium package using below steps:

[root@linuxtechi ~]# wget http://www.robobunny.com/projects/asciiquarium/asciiquarium.tar.gz
[root@linuxtechi ~]# tar zxpvf asciiquarium.tar.gz
[root@linuxtechi ~]# cd asciiquarium_1.1/
[root@linuxtechi asciiquarium_1.1]# cp asciiquarium /usr/local/bin/
[root@linuxtechi asciiquarium_1.1]# chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/asciiquarium

Now run the command

[root@linuxtechi ~]# /usr/local/bin/asciiquarium

or

[root@linuxtechi ~]# asciiquarium

5) Toilet Command

As the name suggests, the functionality of this command is entirely different and don’t know why they named as toilet for this command. This command outputs large sized beautiful banners entirely built using small characters.

For Debian Based systems use below command to install toilet package

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install toilet

For stems like CentOS and RHEL use below commands to install toilet

[root@linuxtechi ~]# wget http://caca.zoy.org/raw-attachment/wiki/toilet/toilet-0.3.tar.gz
[root@linuxtechi ~]# tar zxpvf toilet-0.3.tar.gz
[root@linuxtechi ~]# cd toilet-0.3
[root@linuxtechi toilet-0.3]# ./configure && make && make install

Example:

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ toilet LinuxTechi Rocks

Toilet command offers wide range of options like fonts, colorful characters and filters. Use the man page of toilet command to explore all these options.

6) Set Your Terminal on Fire

Want to set your terminal on fire, don’t panic, it’s just some funny command that outputs fire like output using characters.

Install the package which provides aafire command on Debian like systems.

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install libaa-bin
linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ aafire

7) Ask a Cow to Repeat What You Say

“cowsay” is another funny Linux command that displays your text input by a cow or any other animal of your choice

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install cowsay
linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ cowsay Linux world Rocks

cowsay command can also be used with fortune command, example is shown below :

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ fortune | cowsay

8) Enter the World of Matrix

Relive the matrix experience with the help of cmatrix command.

cmatrix command is not available in the default OS installation, use the below command to install cmatrix package for Debian Based systems

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install cmatrix

Run the beneath command to start the matrix

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ cmatrix

9) Do You Love that Jerry Mouse

Are you getting bored with the same old black mouse pointer and want to have some fun with that. “Oneko” package comes to the rescue, which attaches “Jerry” the famed mouse to your mouse pointer and you can see that little cute mouse run along with your pointer. Pretty much Fun isn’t it ?

Install oneko package using below command on debian like systems

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install oneko

Once the installation is finished type the command “oneko”

10) Turn Your Terminal to Speak To You

Turn your speakers on as you can make your Linux terminal speak to you with the espeak command. Let’s first install epseak package

For Debian based systems

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install espeak

For yum based systems

[root@linuxtechi ~]# yum install espeak

Execute the espeak command followed by the text

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ espeak "LinuxTechi is the best Website for Linux guide and tutorials"

11)  Steam Locomotive in your Linux Terminal

You all know about the “ls” command used for displaying all the files in a folder, but do you know about “sl” ? It is a funny linux command that draws an ASCII steam locomotive in your Linux terminal screen.

‘sl’ command is not available by default, so let’s  first install it.

For Debian based systems

linuxtechi@linuxarena:~$ sudo apt-get install sl

for Yum based systems

[root@linuxtechi ~]# yum install sl

Run the ‘sl’ command and view the output

[root@linuxtechi ~]# sl

12) Watch Star Wars

Want to go back to your school days where you are dumbstruck with the characters of star wars, but you can’t see the movie here, but just see how Star wars text printed in ASCII characters.

[root@linuxtechi ~]# telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

Wait for Couple of seconds , it will print Star wars text in ASCII format.

After couple of seconds , it will show below

To Stop or terminate starwars , simply press ctrl+] and after that telnet terminal will come and type quit there

That’s all from this article, I hope you guys have enjoyed these funny commands and if you feel any other command that should be included in this list, Please do let us know us.