Love Pokemon? Give Your Linux Terminal A Pokemon Makeover

Mewtwo is the strongest, the baddest Pokemon of all. Agree with me? Gimme a high five. Don’t agree with me? Haters gonna hate.

My friends think that I’m a tad bit old for Pokemon now. But little do they know. You are never too old for Pokemon. Never.

Although I quit watching Pokemon a long time ago, the nostalgia comes back to me now and then. Pokemon made our childhood awesome. The show, the cards, the Pikachu vs Charizard argument with friends at school, I must say Pokemon did make childhood amazing.

The latest Pokemon craze, the Pokemon Go game, well it neither needs an introduction nor the narration of extent of its popularity. Honestly, it was a great concept. Although augmented reality technology is still in its infancy and the great things are actually ahead of us, Pokemon Go implemented the AR technology we have now in an innovative way.

The game allowed us to live the fantasy we grew up believing in. 100 million downloads and growing, I wish more greatness for Pokemon Go.

Now coming to the topic at hand, Abhishek pinged me up and asked me to check out this new app called Pokemon-Terminal. Pokemon and terminal, both the words in one name? Dang.

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Pokemon-Terminal

Pokemon-Terminal is an app for Linux and MacOS. It changes the background of the terminal into your favorite Pokemon. It can also change the desktop background of your computer. There are 493 Pokemon featured in this application. The terminal background can be changed with just a single command.

These Pokemon can also be browsed region wise. Yes, it is made by someone who really loves Pokemon. So let me quickly give you the installation instructions.

For Arch Linux, Antergos, Manjaro Linux

yaourt pokemon-terminal-git

For other distros

git clone https://github.com/LazoCoder/Pokemon-Terminal $HOME/.Pokemon-Terminal
echo PATH="$HOME/.Pokemon-Terminal:$"PATH"" >> ~/.bash_profile
source ~/.bash_profile

To change the Pokemon background

pokemon <name-of the pokemon>

For example, let’s go with Mewto Pokemon:

pokemon mewtwo

Currently, Pokemon-Terminal works only with Terminology. So you need to have it installed too. On Ubuntu/ Linux Mint, install Terminology by running the command below,

sudo apt-get install terminology

For Arch Linux / Antergos

sudo pacman -S terminology

I am happy with Mewtwo or Pikachu on my terminal, for those of you who want to explore more, below is the complete command set.

Usage:
    pokemon [parameter]

Parameters:
    [name]        -   Change the terminal background to the specified Pokemon.
    [index]       -   Change the terminal background to a Pokemon by its index.
    [region]      -   List all the Pokemon of the specified region.
    [one letter]  -   List all Pokemon who's names begin with a particular letter.
    [two letters] -   List all Pokemon who's names begin with those two letters.

Other Parameters:
    pokemon all             -   List all the Pokemon supported.
    pokemon regions         -   List all the available regions.
    pokemon extra           -   List all the Pokemon from the 'Extra' folder.
    pokemon random          -   Change the terminal background to a random Pokemon.
    pokemon random-kanto    -   Change the terminal background to a random Pokemon from the specified region.
    pokemon ?               -   Identify the current Pokemon in the terminal.
    pokemon _pikachu        -   Change the wallpaper to the specified Pokemon.
    pokemon _random         -   Change the wallpaper to a random Pokemon.
    pokemon _random-kanto   -   Change the wallpaper to a random Pokemon from the specified region.
    pokemon _?              -   Identify the current Pokemon in the wallpaper.
    pokemon slideshow       -   Iterate through each Pokemon.
    pokemon slideshow-kanto -   Iterate through each Pokemon in the specified region.
    pokemon clear           -   Clear the Pokemon in the terminal.
    pokemon help            -   Display this menu

Wrapping up

Pokemon-Terminal worked flawlessly on the terminal. But it threw an error when I tried changing the desktop wallpaper (Window manager not supported). No points dropped. It did what it’s name suggested and I’m a happy man. I hope they expand the project to work on other terminals soon.

Do share the article and we’re genuinely interested in hearing your Pokemon nostalgia and stories. So go ahead and use the comments below. Cheers.