Here is a list of few Easter eggs on Linux/UNIX and related software.
How did your Easter egg hunt go? Did you find anything? Share it with us.
1. Free the Fish
On Ubuntu (actually, on GNOME), press Alt-F2 to launch the “run application” window and type “free the fish” to free a cute little fish, that will start swimming across your screen.
Free the fish
2. Gegls from outer space
On Ubuntu (actually, on GNOME), press Alt-F2 to launch the “run application” window and type “gegls from outer space” to launch the hidden game.
Gegls from outer space
3. Cow hidden in apt-get
# apt-get moo
(__)
(oo)
/------\/
/ | ||
* /\---/\
~~ ~~
...."Have you mooed today?"...
4. Firefox Robots
Type “about:robots” in the firefox address bar to find out what the robots are upto.
about:robots
5. Openoffice Spreadsheet Hidden Games
Open openoffice calc -> Type =GAME(“StarWars”) inside a cell, which will launch the hidden star wars game.
Star-Wars game inside openoffice calc
Also, try entering the following in any of the openoffice spreadsheet cell and see what happens.
- =GAME(A2:C4;”TicTacToe”)
- =STARCALCTEAM()
- =GAME()
- =GAME(“Froggie”) – Try this on two difference cells
- =TTT()
On openoffice word processor, create a new document, type “StarWriterTeam” and press F3 to see the team picture.
6. aptitude asks: Have you mooed today?
# aptitude moo
There are no Easter Eggs in this program.
# aptitude -v moo
There really are no Easter Eggs in this program.
# aptitude -v -v moo
Didn't I already tell you that there are no Easter Eggs in this program?
# aptitude -v -v -v moo
Stop it!
# aptitude -v -v -v -v moo
Okay, okay, if I give you an Easter Egg, will you go away?
# aptitude -v -v -v -v -v moo
All right, you win.
/----\
-------/ \
/ \
/ |
-----------------/ --------\
----------------------------------------------
# aptitude -v -v -v -v -v -v moo
What is it? It's an elephant being eaten by a snake, of course.
7. Few other eggs
Open the Vim editor, and do the following:
# vim :help 42
Randomly try few curse word and see what you find in the linux source code.
# grep -R <your-favorite-curse-word> /usr/src/*
Try your birthdate on ddate and see what it has to say. Check out discordian calendar to understand what this means.
# ddate Today is Setting Orange, the 17th day of Discord in the YOLD 3176 # ddate 1 4 2003 Sweetmorn, Discord 18, 3169 YOLD # ddate 13 4 2010 Pungenday, Discord 30, 3176 YOLD # ddate 18 11 2010 Boomtime, The Aftermath 30, 3176 YOLD
For those who celebrate this weekend, Happy Easter!
What is your favorite software Easter egg?
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
very nice and funny..Thank u for made this easter happy!
Please don’t mention Ubuntu or other distro names unless the feature is specific to that particular distro. It confuses less experienced users. I think Gnome is available on at least a couple of Distros! ;^)
“# aptitude -v -v -v -v -v moo”
Can also be written as:
“# aptitude -vvvvv moo”
This applies to a basic series of command line options in most Linux applications. There are exceptions such as options that require additional parameters.
Thanks for the list! I hope there are more!
hey dude,nice i like the fish
Good one!!!!
Very cool. Thanks!
the fish gets annoying after a while, how do you make it go away?
Please advice how to kill the fish.
You can kill the fish by doing this from the terminal:
killall gnome-panel
But please, let the fish live. It is easter
“Please advice how to kill the fish.”
“Catch” the fish! Just click on the fish and they “swim” off the screen! Nice!
to kill the fish just wait for 5 mins automatically it will disapperies other wise just try to click on the fish.. it will go away……..
Oh no, please, don’t kill the fish, let it live! ))