XPenguins is a program for animating cute cartoons animals in your root window. By default it will be penguins they drop in from the top of the screen, walk along the tops of your windows, up the side of your windows, levitate, skateboard, and do other similarly exciting things. Now you can send an army of cute little penguins to invade the screen of someone else on your network.

Install XPenguins

Open a command-line terminal (select Applications > Accessories > Terminal), and then type the following commands to install XPenguins program. First, type the command apt-get update to tell apt to refresh its package information by querying the configured repositories and then install the required program:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install xpenguins

How do I Start XPenguins Locally?

Type the following command:
$ xpenguins
Sample outputs:

Be careful when you move windows as the little guys squash easily. If you send the program an interupt signal (Ctrl-C) they will burst.

Themes

To list themes, enter:
$ xpenguins -l
Sample outputs:

Big Penguins
Bill
Classic Penguins
Penguins
Turtles

You can use alternative themes as follows:
$ xpenguins --theme "Big Penguins" --theme "Turtles"
You can install additional themes as follows:
$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://xpenguins.seul.org/xpenguins_themes-1.0.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf xpenguins_themes-1.0.tar.gz
$ mkdir ~/.xpenguins
$ mv -v themes ~/.xpenguins/
$ xpenguins -l
Sample outputs:

Lemmings
Sonic the Hedgehog
The Simpsons
Winnie the Pooh
Worms
Big Penguins
Bill
Classic Penguins
Penguins
Turtles

To start with a random theme, enter:
$ xpenguins --random-theme
To load all available themes and run them simultaneously, enter:
$ xpenguins --all

More links and information:

• XPenguins home page.
• man penguins
• More Linux / UNIX desktop fun with Steam Locomotive and Terminal ASCII Aquarium.