With this little ascii animation you can enjoy an animated pseudo-screensaver even on your GUI-less server. It won’t boost your productivity, it won’t make you a better programmer or your web site run faster. But it could bring you a bit of “security through obfuscation” from those who want to try to log onto your physical GUI-less workstation. Let’s see how to install and use this little under water wonder.

Installation

This little gem can be install on nearly any Linux distribution. As long as you have Perl installed, you should be able to get this up and running in no time. Here are the steps you need to follow. I will assume you might want to test this on a normal GUI-fied version of Linux before you try it on your GUI-less server. So, let’s install.

The first portion of the installation will take care of any remaining dependencies that aren’t included in the standard Perl installation. For this installation, follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal windows. If you are using a GUI-less server then just log in.
2. Change to the /tmp directory with the command cd /tmp.
3. Download the Terminal Animation package with the command wget http://search.cpan.org/CPAN/authors/id/K/KB/KBAUCOM/Term-Animation-2.4.tar.gz.
4. Unpack the Terminal Animation package with the command tar -zxvf Term-Animation-2.4.tar.gz.
5. Change into the newly created directory with the command cd Term-Animation-2.4/.
6. Build the makefile with the command perl Makefile.PL && make && make test.
7. Compile Terminal Animation with the command sudo make install

Now to install the actually asciiquarium application. Follow these steps.

1. Open a terminal window (again, if you are using a GUI-less server, just log in).
2. Change to the /tmp directory with the command cd /tmp.
3. Download the necessary package with the command wget http://www.robobunny.com/projects/asciiquarium/asciiquarium.tar.gz.
4. Unpack the asciiquarium package with the command tar -zxvf asciiquarium.tar.gz.
5. Change into the newly created directory with the command cd asciiquarium.
6. Copy the executable to the necessary directory with the command sudo cp asciiquarium /usr/local/bin.
7. Give the executable the proper permissions with the command sudo chmod 0755 /usr/loca/bin/asciiquarium.

Figure 1

It is time to test out the waters of asciiquarium. To do so open up your terminal window (or if using a GUI-less machine – log in) and issue the command /usr/local/bin/asciiquarium. When it runs it will look something similar to Figure 1 (but in animated form).

Now, you may be asking yourself how could this serve as a form of security? Simple. Even with a standard desktop distribution you can log into a virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F2 – for instance), log in, and run the application. Your full screen will be filled with the asciiquarium and unless a user knows to either hit Ctrl-c or move back to your original virtual terminal, they won’t have the slightest idea what to do.

What you may not know is there is a tool specifically designed to help you install Perl modules. The tool? CPAN. CPAN is the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network and contains a vast assortment of software, used by and with Perl, and makes for easy installation. Problem is, most people don’t know about CPAN or how to use it.

In this article I will introduce you to the CPAN tool and how it can be used to help you get all the Perl modules you need installed. NOTE: There will be times when CPAN has trouble installing modules. In those cases, the best bet is to download the source and read through the README file for better instructions. Generally speaking though, you should be able to get the majority of modules installed with this tool.

Installing CPAN

If you have Perl installed on your machine, you have CPAN. You can test this out by issuing the command cpan from the command line. If you get the dreaded command not found make sure you have:

• perl
• perl-base
• perl-modules

installed. If one (or more) is missing, mark them for installation and then try the command again. When you have successfully reached the CPAN console your prompt will look like:

cpan[1]>

When you see that, you’re ready to rock.

Basic structure

The basic structure of cpan is simple. Once you’re at the command prompt you would issue a command similar to:

install MODULE::NAME

Where MODULE::NAME is the actual name of the module.

But when you first run CPAN the system will ask you a few easy questions. CPAN will want to check for a network connection and so on (hit Enter to accept all of the defaults).

First things

When you have first reached the CPAN prompt you might want to first install a couple of bundle packs that contain numerous modules. The very first install command you will enter is:

install Bundle::CPAN

The above command will install numerous modules, but it might also come up with some errors. Any time you receive an error in CPAN it will report the error to you in the console. Often times the error will point you in a direction that will help to resolve an issue. For example, running install Bundle::CPAN on a fresh install gives me:

Warning: prerequisite Compress::Raw::Zlib 2.024 not found. We have 2.008.
Writing Makefile for IO::Compress
Could not read '/root/.cpan/build/IO-Compress-2.024-1nwcFW/META.yml'. Falling back to other methods to determine prerequisites
---- Unsatisfied dependencies detected during ----
---- PMQS/IO-Compress-2.024.tar.gz ----
Compress::Raw::Zlib [requires]
Compress::Raw::Bzip2 [requires]
Shall I follow them and prepend them to the queue
of modules we are processing right now? [yes]

So, as you can see, CPAN is intelligently resolving your dependency issues for you. In a large install like Bundle:CPAN this can take quite some time.

How to know which module?

If you are trying to install a piece of software on Linux usually you are given a solid roadmap in either the README or INSTALL file with the source. Within that file will be listed any/all Perl modules necessary to meet the installation requirements. And now, with the help of CPAN, you can install them.

Final thoughts

Believe it or not, using CPAN is a simple process. From this easy to use console you can install all of the Perl modules you need. Of course, there is much more to CPAN than this. To find out how much more enter h at the CPAN console for the help file.

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As I said earlier it is a relatively new website which means that they do not have millions of videos. It also takes a longer time for the users to create tutorial videos as you can imagine. The ShowMeDo wiki has a (written) tutorial that explains in detail how to create videos that can be uploaded to ShowMeDo, why not share your knowledge if you are good at something ?

You may request tutorials about a certain subject. Users can vote which request is of interest to them. This is a nice feature, really nice. You still need someone to pick up your request so don’t start with something like theory of relativity. I suppose basic stuff works best here.

If ShowMeDo manages to gain some momentum and exposure on the internet they surely will make they way as a great niche movie website that is able to survive amongst the big players.

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