Liven up your Linux Shell with random colorful ASCII art

Plus: How to display colorful art whenever you start a new Linux Terminal.

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“Shell Color Scripts” is a script which displays a collection of 52, colorful ANSI-style art for the Linux Shell. Because every terminal deserves a little pizzazz.

Some of the art is simple and small… others larger, and more intricate. With lots and lots of video game references. Everything from Pac-Man to Tie Fighters.

And the usage is incredibly simple.

colorscript --help

Description: A collection of terminal color scripts.

Usage: colorscript [OPTION] [SCRIPT NAME/INDEX]

-h, --help, help        	Print this help.
-l, --list, list        	List all installed color scripts.
-r, --random, random    	Run a random color script.
-e, --exec, exec        	Run a specified color script by SCRIPT NAME or INDEX.
-a, --all, all          	List the outputs of all colorscripts with their SCRIPT NAME
-b, --blacklist, blacklist	Blacklist a color script by SCRIPT NAME or INDEX.

You can find the installation instructions over on GitLab.

Run this whenever you start a terminal

Wouldn’t it be cool to run this funky little script any time you start a terminal? Get a little boost of colorful, ANSI/ASCII type art at the top of every shell?

Luckily, it’s super simple. You just need to add this script to your .bashrc file.

1. Open ~/.bashrc in any text editor. (Note: It’s a hidden file, so if you’re opening this from a graphical file manager, you’ll want to enable a Show Hidden Files option.)

2. Scroll to the very bottom of the .bashrc text file.

3. Add “colorscript random”. Save .bashrc.

That will display one of the random, colorful bits of ascii art every time you start a new shell.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

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