I love watching 'stuff' happen in the terminal...

KGIII

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Earlier, I compiled some software. Right now, I have a VM that's very out of date and I'm updating it (via the terminal, of course) so that I can check on a potential bug.

I should try Gentoo again, 'cause I love watching 'stuff' happen in the terminal. Even after all these years, I enjoy it. It's cathartic, I think. It's also interesting. If I have time, I even press F8 during boot to see what's going on. I used to watch Windows defrag (sometimes). You could see the software moving stuff around on the hardware.

I can't be alone in this. Heck, I compile stuff even when I don't need to, though I haven't compiled my own kernel in a long time. I think the last time I did that was when I was going through LFS and BLFS.

Anyone else enjoy watching stuff happen in the terminal?
 


Hell, yeah.

And I have all 84 of my stable set up with

noquiet nosplash

so that I can watch the POST and other stuff load up and troubleshoot potential problems.

Wiz
 
Earlier, I compiled some software. Right now, I have a VM that's very out of date and I'm updating it (via the terminal, of course) so that I can check on a potential bug.

I should try Gentoo again, 'cause I love watching 'stuff' happen in the terminal. Even after all these years, I enjoy it. It's cathartic, I think. It's also interesting. If I have time, I even press F8 during boot to see what's going on. I used to watch Windows defrag (sometimes). You could see the software moving stuff around on the hardware.

I can't be alone in this. Heck, I compile stuff even when I don't need to, though I haven't compiled my own kernel in a long time. I think the last time I did that was when I was going through LFS and BLFS.

Anyone else enjoy watching stuff happen in the terminal?
I made a cow in the terminal once. Also used to enjoy watching W98 defrag.
 
Absolutely! I used to love watching defrag on my old Windows 3.1 machine...the little colored boxes reading and writing.

I leave a terminal window open with htop running in my DE.

If you like those, here is a YouTube video graphically depicting some sorting algorithms.
 
so that I can watch the POST and other stuff load up and troubleshoot potential problems.

It does have value in troubleshooting!

Speaking of which, I have one computer that's now taking like 3 to 4 minutes to boot. The screen says something about UUID so I'm thinking it's an fstab issue but I haven't dug into it. It's an older LMDE install and I'm probably going to move that one to the newest version of Mint Cinnamon when I get time and motivation.

It's weird because it just showed up. There are exactly zero changes made to the computer's hardware, so buggered if I know what caused it. It's inconsequential and not worth spending the hour or two troubleshooting it. Doubly so considering that I have been planning on giving it a nice clean install anyhow.

Of course, I've been planning on doing that since sometime last year, or whenever it was that the new Mint was released... I'll make time for it eventually! If I break the system entirely, I'll get to it sooner!

But, 'cause I can see the text, I know where the computer's choking.

There's value in them-thar text outputs!
 
You have GOT to get a life, Matt ;)

I watched 1:49 of that (sadly had my audio on), and now I think I have a 9th mental health disorder (tic twitches).


IX0LgkU.gif
 
I made a cow in the terminal once. Also used to enjoy watching W98 defrag.

Cowsay - added to Fortune it can be quite fun. I have one computer that tells me a fortune every time I open a new terminal. I could add the cow to that.


Or just Fortune:


I leave a terminal window open with htop running in my DE.

LOL I have 3 terminals open (all different) and do different tasks in each of them.

I do not have any monitoring applications running full-time, however. The great thing about htop vs using a graphical system/task manager is that it doesn't eat all that much RAM or CPU.

Hmm... I should have an 'htop' article. There's a lot to unpack with htop, so it may be interesting to try to turn it into an article. I wonder if it'd be better as a couple (few?) articles?

Ah well, I'm not going to think about that tonight. I'm a couple of beers deep now, instead of my wine.

(I'm kinda regretting not getting Murphy's Irish Stout, but they don't have that at the store I went to. I live really, really remotely.)
 
I watched 1:49 of that (sadly had my audio on), and now I think I have a 9th mental health disorder (tic twitches).

LOL It's easier if you open it fully, where it's large enough print so you can read the sorting algorithm being used. At first I had it playing here and was trying to guess which they were using. I was not doing nearly as well as I should.

It does sound like 8 bit video games - like an old Atari game.

It also sounds like the sounds I'd get from playing around with a Vic-20.
 
These days, the only terminal animation that I watch are progress bars, and hope that they are moving.

There can always watch a movie in your terminal:
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl

It is family safe to run, but it does not always work from everywhere in the world. If it doesn't work, try:
IPv4:
telnet 213.136.8.188
IPv6:
telnet 2001:7b8:666:ffff::1:42

Does anyone remember the screensaver that walked through RAM and displayed it one page at a time as ASCII text? It was fascinating to watch, at least until it was banned at our company. The ban happened when a manager saw something sensitive randomly appear on someone's screensaver.
 
Is one of those Star Wars?

Does anyone remember the screensaver that walked through RAM and displayed it one page at a time as ASCII text?

I do not recall such.
 
Is one of those Star Wars?
Yes. All three "telnet" commands point to the same server, which displays a text-based version of Star Wars. If one does not work, try a different one. Sometimes only the IPv6 version works for me from the US.
 
If one does not work, try a different one.

I have seen it before. A long, long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away....). That's gotta be at least a couple of decades old by now. It's an amazing amount of work.
 
Yes. All three "telnet" commands point to the same server, which displays a text-based version of Star Wars. If one does not work, try a different one. Sometimes only the IPv6 version works for me from the US.
Ah, yes, I remember the Star Wars one.
 
I concur, I love to watch the terminal at work, firing up emerge is no small source of excitement.

Perhaps slightly related:

 
Perhaps slightly related:

LOL The 'hollywood' application is one I have on my list to cover at some point when I want to do a 'fun' article.
 
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If you're bored in the terminal, you can always have a chat with ELIZA, the psychotherapist who lives inside the emacs editor.

The emacs editor was popular for a long time. Emacs still has many adherents, but it is not installed by default in most Linux distros. Emacs is a text editor from the era when everything was done in a 24x80 character terminal, including editing configuration files and source code. Emacs has a lot of capabilities and power; it may be worth your time to learn more about it. In places I worked, developers were evenly divided between emacs and vi. I used emacs most of the time, but did not feel strongly about it. I will not engage in an "emacs versus vi" debate here.

ELIZA is even older than emacs or vi. I first encountered ELIZA many decades ago. The first time I saw ELIZA, I think it was running under DTSS. It was so long ago I do not remember for sure. DTSS was mentioned in this thread:
https://www.linux.org/threads/birth-of-basic.43959/

If you are curious about ELIZA without bothering to install emacs, you can find several examples that run in a web browser. I found these links from a quick web search and provided example transcripts below:
http://psych.fullerton.edu/mbirnbaum/psych101/Eliza.htm
https://web.njit.edu/~ronkowit/eliza.html

California State University, Fullerton:
* I want to provide an example of ELIZA for Linux.org.
> What would it mean to you if you got to provide an example of ELIZA for Linux. org?
* They would be pleased to see this transcript that demonstrates ELIZA's skills at psychoanalysis.
> I'm not sure I understand you fully.
* I do not know what I can add. My previous statement seems clear enough to me.
> What do you think?
* That you are not very good at giving useful, practical advice.
> Perhaps you would like to be not very good at giving useful, practical advice?
* No, I want to give good advice.
> I sometimes also want to give good advice.

New Jersey Institute of Technology:
* I want to provide an example of ELIZA for Linux.org.
> What if you never got to provide an example of ELIZA for Linux. org?
* Then they might be disappointed. I would not want that.
> Can you elaborate on that?
* Not really. I do not know what more I could add. It seems clear enough to me.
> What is it that you really want to know?
* Whether the Linux.org people will be impressed with your responses.
> Why are you so concerned about my responses?

... you get the idea.

To run ELIZA in your Linux terminal, first install the emacs editor. In emacs, type M-X, which is meta-X or Alt-X or just type the ESC key then "X". In the prompt at the bottom of the window, type "doctor", then press Return. The ELIZA program will run. Just type your text and end it with two Returns. ELIZA will respond.
-> Hint: To exit emacs, type CTRL-X, CTRL-C.

Mac and Unix Users:
emacs was included by default on macOS versions prior to macOS 10.15 "Catalina". It was usually installed by default on Unix computers, but not always.
 

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