📅 October 26, 2021
Who does not like the afro-sporting, gentle-speaking painter, Bob Ross?
His painting programs were not only interesting to watch, they were classics for those interested in art. But half the fun of his shows were listening to his witty comments. Whether it be slapping a paint brush against the easel or painting a “Happy little tree,” no Bob Ross program was complete without his classic, jocular phrases.
Why not add a touch of his creative humor to a Bash terminal?
In Linux, we can! With a program, appropriately titled bobrossquotes, we can display any one of his several quotes at random complete with ASCII art of the painter himself.
Installation
bobrossquotes is available as a snap. In Ubuntu Cinnamon Remix, you can install it for free using Software.
bobrossquotes in Software. Just click to install.
From the terminal, you can also install it using,
sudo snap install bobrossquotes
Usage
Easy. Just enter bobrossquotes at the command prompt to receive an inspirational quote.
bobrossquotes
Each time you run it, there will be a (usually) different quote along with a somewhat large ASCII art image of Bob Ross. (Use your imagination.)
Aww. It’s Bob Ross!
Each time we run it, a (usually) different quote is chosen at random.
Umm, the quotes are clever, but isn’t there a way to turn off the ASCII art? There is no man page.
If you are interested in reading a full list of Bob Ross quotes, try checking out the Bob Ross Quotes web page for fun.
snapcraft.io has its own bobrossquotes page for more installation help in case snap is not working properly.
Painting implies color, so let’s add some color using lolcat. You will need to install lolcat from the repository to achieve this.
sudo apt install lolcat
Then, pipe bobrossquotes to lolcat.
bobrossquotes | lolcat
Presto! Happy little Bob Ross.
Conclusion
“What is the purpose in this? I see no practical value. Bah!”
Then you have little to no sense of humor, and this program is not for you. Linux is full of clever little programs that serve no real purpose other than to evoke a chuckle, and bobrossquotes is one of them. That is what makes Linux so much fun!
Personally, I think this is one of those useful programs to remind people not to take the terminal so seriously. bobrossquotes is every bit as important as sl, cowsay, and fortune.
So, if you want a change of pace and seek to experiment with something in the terminal just for the fun of it, why not give bobrossquotes a try?
Have fun!
Delightly Linux 