Matrix Magic

By David Chen @TheEgghead27

This is really stretching it, but I figured that since we watched The Matrix Reloaded, we would try out some little terminal toys that emulates the "digital rain" effect.

In addition, since image processing technically involves matrices, we'll look into photo editing with GIMP!

cmatrix

This is a popular little program that is packaged in many distros. To install it on Alpine Linux, simply run

apk add cmatrix

Unsurprisingly, to run cmatrix, simply type the command

cmatrix

Through the power of ncurses, you'll now see a screen of magic 31337 h@x0r text.

To exit, simply press q to quit, which is a common shortcut to quit many a CLI program.

neo

This is a newer take on the Matrix "rain" effect, with a rich set of options to let you express yourself with your own unique "hacker" screen.

Neo is not commonly packaged on most distros, so we will have to manually build it ourselves.

We will install GNU Autoconf and set up the build recipes from the latest revision of the source code, but you can also skip these first steps by downloading the code off of their releases page.

First, let's checkout the latest revision of the source code (apk add git if you don't have it installed!):

git clone https://github.com/st3w/neo.git
cd neo

We'll need autoconf and automake to generate the build scripts, so let's

apk add autoconf automake

and then

./autogen.sh

Now, we have the ./configure script, which will locate all the dependencies we need. Make sure to install the C++ toolchain, along with the developer headers for ncurses by running

apk add build-base ncurses-dev

We can now run ./configure to set up the Makefile, and call make (with 3 Jobs at once, to utilize the multiple threads on your computer... you are doing this on a computer with at least 4 threads, right?)

./configure
make -j3

This will pop out the final program onto src/neo, but if you want to have neo on your PATH for instant hackermaning at a drop of a dime, run make install as root, allow you to run neo in the terminal as you would any other program.

Check out man neo (you'll have to apk add mandoc on Alpine) to see all the lovely options neo provides. Have fun making the craziest screens you've ever seen!

And don't forget...

The program has been set to display in a pink color, with the message "Join Stuy Linux <3" at the center.

GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program is one of the main FOSS options for image editing and other touchups, though there are alternatives like Photopea and Krita (designed for drawing).

We will take a real photograph, perhaps of a cute Gentoo penguin (credit to Andrew Shiva, and cut out the penguin to place on a hackery background (aka a screenshot of neo).

First, install GIMP if you have not already, it can be found in the repos of most desktop Linux distros.

Open up our image in the editor, and add an alpha channel. The GIMP editor is open to the penguin. Because this is a JPEG file, it does not come with an alpha (transparency) layer by default, so we must tell GIMP to add one first.

Using the paint bucket set to Erase mode, and playing with the threshold level, we can get the vast majority of the background erased. There may still be some dust left over, so feel free to brush it over with the eraser or paintbrush tools. The paint bucket tool in GIMP has been selected, and set to Erase mode. There is a composite threshold of 13.8 set at the bottom left. The penguin is now backgroundless. The Eraser tool is active. Its size is 317 pixels, as it was used for broad sweeping strokes to erase the dust surrounding the penguin.

Now that we have a foreground, let's get some imagery for the background.

Take a screenshot of your terminal running your favorite instance of neo, and go to File > Open as Layers to import it to this workspace. Alternatively, copy-paste it in!

If you copy-pasted the new layer, press the green add layer button at the bottom right to create a new layer.

Drag the layer to be below our source image. Now you'll see it peeking out from under our transparent mask.

You can edit things however you like, adding text, scaling images, etc., and in the end, you'll have made something of your own!

To export your masterpiece for wallpapering purposes, head to File > Export as..., and save it however you like, in the format you prefer (JPG is usually good enough).

Congratulations! You have just created your own little design! Feel free to screenshot, share, turn into an NFT, whatever, assuming you have the correct licenses for the source images (or better yet, own them all yourself).

Here's the final wallpaper I made, as a derivative work of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licensed Wikimedia image!

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