Easter Eggs in Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi is fun. But there is also lot of fun hidden in it. Here are some easter eggs we have listed out to make your journey with Pi more interesting.

In this post we have only listed the commands. The outputs are for you to unravel and enjoy. All the command are for Raspberry Pi Shell. To know how you can access the shell of Raspberry Pi Click Here.

Note for Noobs: Do not type ‘$’ when you typo the command in Shell. Your command to be typed in shell is what comes after the ‘$’. The dollar sign would be there to indicate you are in shell.

1) Type $ sudo apt-get moo in the shell of your Raspberry Pi.

2) $ sudo aptitude moo
If this does not give you any easter egg then try $ sudo aptitude -v moo
then try $ sudo aptitude -vv moo
keep adding an extra v. Have fun

sl-train3) This one is for dyslexic like me
first you need to install the egg by following command:
$ sudo apt-get install sl
To check the list of files in a directory you type ls. Now instead type sl. Enjoy !

4) Install vim by typing sudo apt-get install vim
Now start vim by typing ‘vim’ in shell
$ vim
Now type  :help 42
The output is a reference to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”

5) Emacs has lot of easter eggs. Emacs is another editor available in UNIX. Like vi, emacs is a screen editor. Unlike vi, emacs is not an insertion mode editor, meaning that any character typed in emacs is automatically inserted into the file, unless it includes a command prefix.These easter eggs work with Linux and Mac OS X too.

First you need to install emacs. $ sudo apt-get install emacs

Now click Escape and X together (Esc + x). You will get a small M-x at the bottom of your screen. Now type the command for the easter egg ahead of it. Few of the eggs are:

i) M-x doctor
This one will introduce you to a psycotherpist. Go ahead and take his help.

ii) M-x tetris
Play your favourite game. Also try typing ‘pong’
To get a list of all the games available go for $ ls /usr/share/emacs/22.1/lisp/play/

iii) M-x life
Watch cell multiplication in ASCII

To quit Emacs when you are finished, type Ctrl, followed by x, and then Ctrl and c:
Ctrl-x
Ctrl-c

6) You can have a cow say some nice things for you.cowsay
$ sudo apt-get install cowsay
to execute use $ cowsay “The content you want the cow to say”
Here you can have other animals/objects and actions too say the words you wish.
$ cowsay -f stegosaurus “Mooah”
to get th whole list $ cowsay -l All animals

7) We all love fortune cookies. They are there in Pi too.
$ sudo apt-get install
to get your tip type in shell $ fortune
need another fortune tip then try again $ fortune

Note: You can also pipe the output of fortune to cow say.
try $ fortune | cowsay
$ fortune | cowsay -f tux
and so onstar_wars_the_movie

8) This one is for the Star Wars fans out there:
install telnet by following command: $ sudo apt-get install telnet
The type the following command in shell $ telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
This will play the Star Wars movie in ASCII. Really appreciate the guys who designed it.

Have fun with your Pi. If you want to know about the workshop on Raspberry Pi conducted by us or you wish you have the workshop as part of your event then visit http://www.inventrom.com/invent-o-pi.php

Enjoy, Keep Rocking and remebr what Yoda would say ” “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Accessing the Raspberry Pi (Shell / Command Line Access)

Method 1: Level Beginner

The easiest most simplest way to ssh into your raspberry pi is through the pi itself.

For this you will require a HDMI or RCA compatible Monitor / LCD or LED Screen / TV.

Along with a USB Keyboard (optional USB mouse). Of course as usual your Raspberry Pi will require a power adapter to power it and a SD card with a OS (Raspbian/NOOBS) burnt onto it.

Simply connect the Monitor / LCD or LED Screen / TV to either the RCA or HDMI ports present on the raspberry pi and connect the SD and power adapter and power it on.

After a couple of boot up messages you should see the following line which mean you are now into the shell of the raspberry pi, and the pi will accept further shell commands after you enter a valid username and password.

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Method 2: Level Moderate user

So now that you’ve used the pi in this config, u realize that the pi is no longer portable. Why?, cause you’ll always need a HDMI/RCA capable screen to view and work on the pi.

DO NOT PANIC!

Solution: instead of a monitor now you’ll need your own laptop and a router or a modem with at least 2 LAN ports and preferably wifi.

Next we connect a LAN cable to the pi and to the router/modem and then another LAN cable from the second port of your router/modem to your pc. If your router/modem has wifi then just connect your laptop via wifi.

PS if your router has a WAN port along with LAN port DO NOT! i repeat DO NOT! connect to the WAN port of the router.

Now if your Pi is properly connected to the router/modem all Led lights below the PWR Light of the Pi should light up.

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Also your pc should show lan / wifi access to your router/modem.

Thus we have created a local network involving your laptop and your pi.

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Now to find your pi’s IP address on this local network. Before we do this we will need download two application software on your laptop.

The first one is called Advanced IP Scanner.    

Download this software from the link above and install it on your system.

When the software starts correctly the following window should pop-up on your screen.

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Sometimes we may not know what IP’s (addresses) the router or modem is giving out to the devices connected to it. For this IP scanner gives a simple solution of just clicking a Button encircled above within the software called IP.

If your system has got a valid IP the address bar will now contain a range of address within which the router assigns IPs.

In the image above it is (192.168.1.1 – 192.168.1.255). This simply says that the router generally has its own IP address at 192.168.1.1 the first available address and your system or any other device connected to the same router will have an IP address of 192.168.1.x where x= any number between 2 and 255.

After this is done click on SCAN, to search for all available systems present on the local network you just set up. The software will list out all systems along with their IP addresses when this is done.

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Ignore the fact that my Raspberry Pi has got the name as KRISHNA-WAIO(few bugs in IP scanner), but as you can see it clearly says in the manufacturer tab that it is from Raspberry PI Foundation nad has an IP address of 192.168.1.101

This IP address may vary for you and so may the name, but the manufacturer will always show as Raspberry PI Foundation.

Note down this IP which your Pi has got from the router and then Download(required only for Windows users) a software named PuTTY.

Depending on what you’ve downloaded you may have to install PuTTY or just Click on the Application to run it.

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As seen in the image above all you have to do next is enter your Pi’s IP address and click on open. You are now ready to SSH into your Raspberry Pi.

After typing in your login name and password you will see the following screen.

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Your Pi will now accept Shell commands but you will not be able to use startx command to view Pi desktop.

 

Method 3: Level Advanced (Less Hardware Requirements)

Now the first method suits best for a single user at home. With requirements of compatible screen and USB keyboard.

The second method suits best for multiple user at home or anyplace which has plug points. With requirements of a router/modem with LAN ports and WIFI and LAN cables.

This method requires minimum hardware. ONE LAN CABLE.

Wait before you get all excited PLEASE NOTE you’ll need to configure your Pi using either Method 1 o Method 2.

So please ssh into your Pi and type the following in shell command line.

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

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The nano editor will open the following file

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We have to edit this file.

First the line that says “iface eth0 inet dhcp” should be changed to “iface eth0 inet static”

Next, after this line add the following lines after leaving a space from the leftmost column.(make sure all the following lines of code have an equal space from the leftmost column, this process is called code indentation)

address 192.168.1.10

netmask 255.255.255.0

gateway 192.168.1.1

Your modified file should look like this.

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DO NOT worry if your file below the “gateway” address doesn’t look same as the pic above, that is the configuration for wifi and will not be covered in this post

Save this config and reboot your Pi using the following command

sudo reboot

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Now that your Raspberry PI is set up it may or may not work with your router/modem (depending on whether 192.168.1.x is the IP range your router/modem works in or not).

That competes half of this method. The second half is to configure your System(Laptop or PC).

Start by going to your network settings and then your network adapter settings page.

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Right click on your Ehternet adapter(this post doesn’t cover any aspect, if your laptop doesn’t have an ethernet port or if your drivers for it are not installed) and click on properties.

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Doing so should open the following window.

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First select Internet Protocol Version 4(TCP/IPV4), and click on Properties.Doing so should open the following window.

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If you have some settings done already here save them.(I’m guessing if you do you have prior experience in these steps).

Otherwise click on “Use the following IP address:” and enter the following

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you can choose your own ip address i.e. 192.168.1.50 can be anything between 2 to 255 but not the same as the you previously set for your Pi.

BUT!!! make sure your netmask  and gateway are the same as shown above and as same as the ones you had previously set on PI.

After you save and close both windows you are now ready to ssh into your Pi.

Just connect a LAN cable between your system and your pi. Then open PuTTY on your system and type in the address you assigned for Pi and you are GOOD TO GO!!! enjoying experimenting with this wonderful device.

This post was written for Inventrom by Dattaprasad Naik. Datta has been working with Inventrom since 2013 and leads Learn, the department involved in training and workshops. Follow Datta on twitter via @datta_TECH


 

At Inventrom we have, to our credit, an experience of four years in conducting workshops for engineering students and working professionals alike.  We have successfully conducted workshops for our corporate clients such as TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), Chowgules, NETZSCH, PSL(Persistent Systems Ltd.) etc. We have also conducted workshops at conferences such as Nullcon, VLSI Society of India Symposium, BARCamp Goa etc. We always love to teach engineering students and hence in last one year we have trained more than 1000 engineering students. We have conducted workshops in institutions such as IIT Kanpur, IIT Roorkee, BITS Pilani, BITS Goa, VIT Vellore and many other prestigious engineering colleges of India and have continuously received overwhelmingly positive response from the students, hobbyists and researchers alike by means of feedback and testimonials.

To know more about our workshop on Raspberry Pi and to organise the same at your institute visit Invent-O-Pi mail to contactus@inventrom.com or call Pranav on (+91)7875238094