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?
My name is Ramesh Natarajan. I will be posting instruction guides, how-to, troubleshooting tips and tricks on Linux, database, hardware, security and web. My focus is to write articles that will either teach you or help you resolve a problem. Read more about
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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! ))
i am trying to see the team photo in open office spread sheet by write=starcalcteam but it shown 42 in cell.
plese some one help me to short out this…