Arch Linux User Repository

Simulate the digital rain from "The Matrix"

call in terminal with command neo-matrix

Q: neo displays garbage characters on the screen. How can this be fixed?

A: neo will attempt to use half-width katakana characters by default. You may not have a font installed that can display them correctly, or your terminal might not support Unicode well. Try "--charset=ascii" or changing your font. You may also need to use the "--colormode=0" option to disable color.

Q: Colors aren't working. How can this be fixed?

A: Make sure your terminal supports colors. Double check if you need to set the TERM environment variable to enable colors. You may want to try the "--colormode" option.

Q: How do I disable the blinking characters?

A: Use the --noglitch option.

Q: Can I make the text scroll faster or slower?

A: Yes, use the -S/--speed option. Also, the UP and DOWN keys change the speed. The --async option may be fun to try.

Q: How do I change the colors?

A: Use the -c/--color option (e.g. "-c red"). The number keys also change the color while running. Check out the "COLOR FILE" section in the manual if you want to customize neo with your own colors.

Q: How do I change the characters displayed?

A: Use the --charset and/or --chars option. You may also need to use the -F/--fullwidth option depending on the characters you selected.

Q: How do I display a message in the center of the screen?

A: Use the -m/--message option. Don't forget to use double quotes!

Q: neo just shows simple ASCII characters. How can I make it show Unicode characters?

A: neo detects if your locale supports Unicode. Typically, your $LANG environment variable should have "UTF" somewhere if it does (e.g. "en_US.UTF-8"). You can use commands such as localectl to change these settings. You can force neo to attempt to use Unicode by setting a custom charset (e.g. --charset=extended), but this still may not work due to other OS and terminal settings.

Options:

-a, --async asynchronous scroll speed

-b, --bold=NUM control character boldness

-C, --colorfile=FILE read the colors from a file

-c, --color=COLOR select the foreground text color

-D, --defaultbg use the default terminal background color

-d, --density=NUM set the density of droplets

-F, --fullwidth use two columns per character

-f, --fps=NUM set the frames per second target/limit

-G, --glitchpct=NUM set the percentage of screen chars that glitch

-g, --glitchms=NUM1,2 control how often characters glitch

-h, --help show this help message

-l, --lingerms=NUM1,2 control how long characters linger after scrolling

-M, --shadingmode=NUM set the shading mode

-m, --message=STR display a message

-p, --profile enable profiling mode

-r, --rippct=NUM set the percentage of droplets that die early

-S, --speed=NUM set the scroll speed in chars per second

-s, --screensaver exit on the first key press

-V, --version print the version

--chars=NUM1,2 use a range of unicode chars

--charset=STR set the character set

--colormode=NUM set the color mode

--maxdpc=NUM set the maximum droplets per column

--noglitch disable character glitching

--shortpct=NUM set the percentage of shortened droplets

I've gotten the same issue as nate_x, build failure with supposed syntax error at line 3850 in ./configure. Clearly there's no error since it builds for you, so it must be a dependency problem? Not sure.

@sgorblex packages of the base-devel group don't have to be added to makedepends

Pretty sure automake is missing as make dep. Correct me if I'm wrong

@emk2203 man page is now working :) just update and man neo-matrix

@nate_x I'm sorry, can't replicate the issue, I've got it installed on three different machines with different architectures and didn't get that error

@fabiololix implementing it like that would potentially conflict with the man page for neo isn't it? That's the whole point in calling it neo-matrix instead after all :)

For installing man page can be used:

install -Dm644 "${srcdir}/neo/doc/neo.6" -t "${pkgdir}/usr/share/man/man6/"

man page is missing.

package fails build.

checking for ncurses.h... yes
./configure: line 3850: syntax error near unexpected token `noext,'
./configure: line 3850: `AX_CXX_COMPILE_STDCXX_11(noext, mandatory)'
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
    Aborting...
 -> error making: neo