Linux Candy: cbonsai – generate bonsai trees

Linux Candy is a series of articles covering interesting eye candy software. We only feature open source software in this series.

Some of the programs in this series are purely cosmetic, frivolous pieces of fun. Candy at their finest. But we also include some programs that aren’t purely decorative.

There’s a diverse range of programs included in this series. Programs such as eDEX-UI and Variety are actually highly practical programs. ASCIIQuarium has soothing and relaxing qualities for your desktop. Other programs included in this series (such as lolcat, cacafire) are included purely for their decorative qualities. And then there’s some really fun software that just raises a smile or two.

cbonsai is a bonsai tree generator, written in C using ncurses. It intelligently creates, colors, and positions a bonsai tree in your terminal.

Installation

On our test Ubuntu 23.04 system installation was plain-sailing. There’s a package in the Ubuntu repositories. Issue the command to install:

$ sudo apt install cbonsai

In Operation

Issue the command cbonsai and a randomly generated static tree is created in your terminal.

Besides the static mode, there’s also a live mode where you see the growth of the tree step-by-step. There’s the option to set the wait time between the steps of growth. Here’s a short video of cbonsai in its live mode with the default wait time of 0.03 seconds.

There are lots of configuration options available. Here’s a short outline:

• Infinite mode – keep growing trees.
• Screensaver mode – this is a combination of the live mode and the infinite mode.
• Attach a message next to the tree.
• Choose a different ascii-art plant base, and a list of comma-delimited strings randomly chosen for leaves.
• Branch multiplier.
• There’s also options to print the tree to the terminal, and change the seed random number generator.

Summary

cbonsai is a perfect candidate for the Linux Candy series.

We’re using it as a ‘screensaver’ on one of our monitors; it’s strangely mesmerizing with an almost haunting and hypnotic effect which is actually not good for productivity. OK, we’re waxing lyrically now!

We’re hoping the neofetch mode of bonsai.sh gets added in a later release.

Website: gitlab.com/jallbrit/cbonsai
Support:
Developer: John Allbritten
License: GNU General Public License v3.0

cbonsai is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

Complete list of articles in this series: