Linux CLI Entertainment

If you are reading this and you are a Linux Command Line Interface (CLI) user, then you may be interested in occasionally beautifying your CLI output with the use of various (often comical) ASCII artwork using the programs cowthink or cowsay, such as below:

$ ping -c 5 google.co.za | cowthink -W 60
 _____________________________________________________________
( PING google.co.za (155.232.240.19) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 )
( bytes from gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za                 )
( (155.232.240.19): icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=30.6 ms 64 bytes   )
( from gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):     )
( icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=30.1 ms 64 bytes from                )
( gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          )
( icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=31.0 ms 64 bytes from                )
( gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          )
( icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=30.3 ms 64 bytes from                )
( gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          )
( icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=30.9 ms                              )
(                                                             )
( --- google.co.za ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, )
( 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4005ms rtt                 )
( min/avg/max/mdev = 30.167/30.631/31.071/0.401 ms            )
 -------------------------------------------------------------
        o   ^__^
         o  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||


$ ping -c 5 google.co.za | cowsay -W 60
 _____________________________________________________________
/ PING google.co.za (155.232.240.19) 56(84) bytes of data. 64 \
| bytes from gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za                 |
| (155.232.240.19): icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=30.1 ms 64 bytes   |
| from gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):     |
| icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=30.4 ms 64 bytes from                |
| gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          |
| icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=31.3 ms 64 bytes from                |
| gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          |
| icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=31.1 ms 64 bytes from                |
| gc-cpt-bree-g21-23-19.uni.net.za (155.232.240.19):          |
| icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=31.1 ms                              |
|                                                             |
| --- google.co.za ping statistics --- 5 packets transmitted, |
| 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4004ms rtt                 |
\ min/avg/max/mdev = 30.170/30.839/31.348/0.458 ms            /
 -------------------------------------------------------------
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

Or one of my favourites:

$ uptime | cowthink -f tux
 _________________________________________
(  06:10:29 up 1 day, 1:43, 3 users, load )
( average: 0.60, 0.41, 0.23               )
 -----------------------------------------
   o
    o
        .--.
       |o_o |
       |:_/ |
      //   \ \
     (|     | )
    /'\_   _/`\
    \___)=(___/

Want to know what sort of cows or ASCII artwork is available to your install? You need only use the command:

$ ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows

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