A program for those who mistype ls.
"…a highly advanced animation program for curing your bad habit of mistyping"
—sl's man page
Cure my mistyping? It doesn't work, i can still mistype when i mean to run ls. For non-linux users, ls is the equivalent of typing dir at a Windows prompt. it gets a list of the files in the current directory, and as a result, is quite frequently typed once you've changed into a new directory, or rather, because you're cocky and think you've got th muscle memory down, you fudge it and type 'sl" instead.
So the "advanced animation" is an ASCII steam locomotive engine crossing the terminal from right to left, complete with smoke pouring from the chimney(smokestack?). i do it often enough that it's no longer amusing to me, but it does entertain onlookers who wonder what the heck is happening on my system.
==== ________ ___________
_D _| |_______/ \__I_I_____===__|_________|
|(_)--- | H\________/ | | =|___ ___| _________________
/ | | H | | | | ||_| |_|| _| \_____A
| | | H |__--------------------| ___ | =| |
| ________|___H__/__|_____/~\_______| | -| |
|/ | |-----------I_____I D |=======|____|________________________|_
__/ =| o |=-~~\ /~~\ /~~\ /~~\ ____Y___________|__|__________________________|_
|/-=|___|| || || || |_____/~\___/ |_D__D__D_| |_D__D__D_|
\_/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \__/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/ \_/
Installing it should be a piece of cake. as most distros will have it in their standard repositories, so whatever you have to do to install a new program, do that (e.g. in Ubuntu linux or debian, it's apt install sl and lo! and behold, typing "sl" in your terminal will be rewarded.
Of course, it's Linux, so there are command-line options:
-a An accident seems to happen. You'll feel pity for people who cry for help.
(the engine driver calls stridently for help. i am disappointed that the loco doesn't crash =\)
-l shows little one. (a half-height loco steams across the screen)
-F It flies. (slowly up the screen)
-e Allow interrupt by Ctrl+C. (why would anyone want this? interrupt this delightful animation‽)
the program has been around since 2014, presumably in response to so many people griping about how many users were cocking up their typing in computer labs. I imagine some poor instructor fielding endless complaints from students about how hard it was to list files, and writing this as a joke response. the man page lists the author as one Toyoda Masashi, to whom many thanks.
interestingly, under the heading "BUGS" in the man page, is the line "it sometimes lists directory contents". Brilliant.
$ xclip -o | wc -w
432 with the ASCII art, 361 without.