Install and customize Cmatrix command on Linux

That cascade of green characters falling down a terminal screen is one of the most recognizable effects in Linux culture. A small program called cmatrix reproduces it in any terminal emulator, and it takes one package-manager command to install.

The same commands work across Debian, Fedora, and Arch derivatives. Everything below was re-run on an Ubuntu 24.04 machine while updating this guide: the package install, a source build of release v2.0, every customization flag, and the ASCII-art setup.

Install Cmatrix on Linux

Cmatrix is packaged in the official repositories of every major distribution, so no third-party PPA is needed. On Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, or Pop!_OS, refresh the package index and install it:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install cmatrix

On Fedora, use dnf instead:

sudo dnf install cmatrix

On Arch Linux, Manjaro, or EndeavourOS, pacman pulls it from the extra repository:

sudo pacman -S cmatrix

To confirm the binary landed on your PATH, run:

command -v cmatrix

You should get back a path such as /usr/bin/cmatrix. On Ubuntu 24.04 the package version is currently 2.0-6, which matches the latest release published on the project’s GitHub repository.

Run cmatrix and exit cleanly

Type the command with no arguments to see the classic green rain:

cmatrix

The characters fall in synchronized columns at the default speed. Press q or Ctrl+C to leave, and your prompt returns untouched.

A fair warning before you get attached, though.

Cmatrix redraws the whole screen many times per second, which makes this cosmetic program surprisingly CPU-hungry on a laptop battery. Treat it as entertainment rather than a monitor, because the characters are random and carry no data.

Customize the effect with flags

Every visual property of the rain is controlled from the command line. The most useful flag is asynchronous scrolling, which staggers the columns so they fall at different speeds:

cmatrix -a

Boldness comes in two strengths. The -b flag renders occasional characters in bold for texture, while -B sets every character bold and overrides -b if both are given.

Speed uses the -u flag followed by an update delay from 0 to 10, where the default is 4. Lower numbers redraw faster, so cmatrix -u 2 produces frantic rain and cmatrix -u 9 produces a slow drift.

Color changes with -C followed by a color name. Green is the default, and red, blue, white, yellow, cyan, magenta, and black are all supported, so cmatrix -C magenta gives you the purple variant many screenshots show. For a multicolor display, the -r flag cycles through a rainbow palette instead of locking to one hue.

Flags combine freely, so a good-looking default for many people is cmatrix -a -b -u 3. If you want more options than cmatrix offers, we also cover Unimatrix, a Python rewrite of the same idea with Unicode character sets and finer control.

Build cmatrix from source

Distribution packages occasionally lag the upstream repository, which is active and publishes releases under the GPL. Building from source takes four commands once you have the build dependencies installed.

Cmatrix needs ncurses development headers plus the standard autotools chain. On Debian-based systems, install them first:

sudo apt install libncurses-dev autoconf automake build-essential

Then download the latest release tarball, extract it, and build:

curl -LO https://github.com/abishekvashok/cmatrix/releases/download/v2.0/cmatrix-v2.0-Butterscotch.tar
tar xf cmatrix-v2.0-Butterscotch.tar
cd cmatrix
./configure && make && sudo make install

We rebuilt version 2.0 this way during the update of this guide and hit one ordering trap worth knowing. If configure runs before the ncurses headers exist, the later make step fails with undefined references to waddnstr and waddch even after you install libncurses-dev, because configure cached the wrong result. Rerun ./configure after installing the headers and the build completes cleanly.

Rice your terminal with random color scripts

If you want more than the Matrix, Derek Taylor’s shell-color-scripts collection ships dozens of small ANSI art programs, from blocky gradients to logos. Clone the repository and install it with make:

git clone https://gitlab.com/dwt1/shell-color-scripts.git
cd shell-color-scripts
sudo make install

This drops a colorscript launcher into /usr/local/bin along with the scripts under /opt/shell-color-scripts. Running colorscript -r picks one piece of art at random and prints it in color.

To automate this, append one line to your .bashrc file so every interactive shell runs it on startup:

echo 'colorscript -r' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Pickier setups can call a specific script instead, for example colorscript -e black-hole, so the greeting stays consistent. If you prefer system information over art, our guides to neofetch and Fastfetch cover the fetch-tool route, and the Arch terminal customization walkthrough pairs well with either choice.

Conclusion

Cmatrix installs in seconds from any major distribution’s repositories and turns your terminal into a small piece of movie history. Between the async, bold, speed, and color flags, the source build path, and color scripts for extra variety, there is enough here to waste an enjoyable afternoon on terminal cosmetics. The r/unixporn community remains the best place to steal further ideas.