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.
tanuki is a small GUI program that plays the hourly music from Animal Crossing on your computer. It’s free and open source software for Linux, macOS, and Windows.
Animal Crossing is a popular, relaxing social simulation video game series by Nintendo where players live in a customizable, open-ended village or island populated by anthropomorphic animals.
Installation
I evaluated tanuki with Ubuntu 25.10. There’s a deb package available in the project’s GitHub repository.
My initial attempt to install the deb fails as my vanilla installation is missing libwebkit2gtk.
Installing the missing library with the command
$ sudo apt install libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 isn’t sufficient as my system still has unsatisfied dependencies. They are installed with the command:
$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
As you can see, the tanuki program is now installed.
The project also provides an RPM package for Fedora/RHEL, as well as binaries for macOS and Windows. My testing is limited only to Ubuntu.
In operation
Here’s an image of tanuki in action.
The program plays music based on the time of the day. The two sliders control the volume of the music and the volume of the rain.
Here’s a list of the sets that are available including the variants.
Summary
tanuki certainly is a frivolous piece of fun. It’s a perfect fit for the Candy series.
There are quite a few features that aren’t yet implemented. Hopefully they’ll come soon particularly town tunes. These town tunes (or island tunes in New Horizons) are customizable 16-note, user-created melodies that play at the top of every hour, when talking to villagers, and upon entering buildings.
Website: github.com/Hex-4/tanuki
Support:
Developer: hex4
License: MIT License
Complete list of articles in this series:
| Linux Candy | |
|---|---|
| ASCIIQuarium | Embrace marine life from the terminal with beautiful ASCII art |
| ASCII Art Converter | A small utility that converts images into ASCII art |
| asciify | Turn images into attractive ASCII art |
| ascii_moon | Displays the moon phase |
| BobRossQuotes | Collection of quotes from Bob Ross |
| Boxes | Command line ASCII boxes |
| Buoh | Online strips comics reader |
| cacafire | Color ASCII fire |
| catclock | xclock with an enhanced cat mode |
| cbonsai | Generate bonsai trees in the terminal |
| christmasfetch | Festive cheer on the desktop |
| chucknorris | Chuck Norris jokes in your terminal |
| Clairvoyant | Like a magic 8-ball inspired fortune teller |
| cornyjokes | Corny jokes for the terminal |
| CMatrix | ncurses program that simulates the display from “The Matrix” |
| ctree | A Christmas tree right on your terminal |
| cutieascii | Displays random ASCII art emojis |
| doge | Simple motd script |
| eDEX-UI | Sci-fi computer terminal emulator and system monitor |
| emoj | Simple tool that to find suitable emojis for pasting to your clipboard |
| Emote | Modern popup emoji picker |
| Evolvotron | Interactive generative art |
| Fantascene | Dynamic wallpaper changer |
| Fondo | Find beautiful wallpapers from Unsplash |
| Fractal Art | Desktop wallpaper generator |
| gti | Typo-based curio inspired by Steam Locomotive |
| Hidamari | Python-based app that offers video wallpaper for Linu |
| Hollywood | Fill your console with Hollywood melodrama technobabble |
| lifecycler | Aquarium right in your terminal |
| linuxwave | Generate music from the entropy of Linux |
| Lolcat++ | Rainbows and unicorns |
| Meme | Fun tool to create memes |
| No More Secrets | Recreates the data decryption effect from the Sneakers movie |
| nook | Plays Animal Crossing hourly themes on the hour |
| nyancat | Terminal-based Pop Tart Cat Animation |
| oneko | Animal chasing fun |
| Picture Of The Day | Your daily wallpaper |
| pipes.sh | Animated pipes terminal screensaver |
| ponysay | cowsay reimplemention for ponies |
| projectM | Music visualizer originally based on Milkdrop |
| pscircle | A different take on the venerable ps command |
| PyBonsai | Generates procedural ASCII art trees |
| pyjokes | One line jokes for programmers |
| Pywal | Generate color schemes on the fly (not actively developed) |
| Relaxator | Relax to soothing sounds |
| ricksay | Rick and Morty quotes of the day |
| Rusty Aquarium | Monitoring by visualization |
| shuffle | ASCII art with a cool shuffle effect |
| sigye | Customizable terminal clock with Pomodoro functionality |
| Steam Locomotive | C program written in 295 lines. It's harmless fun |
| tanuki | Hourly animal crossing vibes |
| Ternimal | Animated lifeform in the terminal |
| terminal-parrot | Party parrot time |
| tetris | Tile-matching puzzle video game in your terminal |
| Variety | Wallpaper manager with many desktops and wallpaper sources |
| WallGen | Generate HQ poly wallpapers with a few arguments. |
| WallpaperDownloader | Download, change, and manage wallpapers |
| WallPicker | Modern GTK4/Libadwaita wallpaper picker |
| wallust | Create 16 color palettes |
| walrs | Fast colorscheme generator |
| WSelector | Browse, download, and set wallpapers from Wallhaven.cc |
| xcowsay | Displays a cow on your desktop with message |
| XDecorations | Add some festive cheer to your desktop |
| XScreenSaver | Framework and collection of screensavers |
| yosay | Like cowsay but with less cow |