ASCII art on Linux covers more ground than most guides let on: converting your own photos into terminal-friendly art, pulling up the Arch logo next to your system stats, or grabbing a ready-made logo to paste into a README. This guide walks through ascii-image-converter, the tool most people reach for first, then rounds up the fetch tools, copy-paste logos and other ASCII toys worth knowing about on Arch.
What is ASCII art
ASCII art is any image built from the 95 printable characters in the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) standard, first published in 1963. Terminal tools lean on it because plain text works everywhere, including SSH sessions and lightweight consoles with no image support.
On Arch, ASCII art shows up in three separate contexts: converting a photo with a command-line tool, displaying your distro’s logo next to system information and grabbing a ready-made piece of text art to paste somewhere else.
ASCII art vs ANSI art
ANSI art extends the same idea with extended characters and color escape codes. ascii-image-converter’s --color flag technically produces ANSI art, though everyone still searches for and calls it ASCII art.
ascii-image-converter: turn images into ASCII art on Arch
ascii-image-converter is the command-line tool most guides point to for turning a JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP, TIFF, or GIF into ASCII output printed straight to the terminal. It also renders braille-based art, which packs more visual detail into the same character grid than plain ASCII does.
The project’s last tagged release was v1.13.1, back in November 2022, and the maintainer hasn’t shipped an update since. It still runs fine on a current Arch install, just don’t expect new flags or fixes if something breaks on a future terminal emulator.
Install on Debian and Ubuntu-based distros
Add the project’s APT repository, then install the package:
echo 'deb [trusted=yes] https://apt.fury.io/ascii-image-converter/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ascii-image-converter.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y ascii-image-converter
This works on Ubuntu, Debian and most of their derivatives. Remove the repository file later with sudo rm -v /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ascii-image-converter.list if you no longer want the updates.
Install ASCII art Arch Linux and Arch-based distros
The package lives in the Arch User Repository (AUR), not the official repos, so you’ll need an AUR helper such as yay or paru, or a manual makepkg build.
With an AUR helper:
paru -S ascii-image-converter-bin
The -bin package installs a prebuilt binary and skips the compile step entirely, which is quicker than the -git version older guides tend to mention. Building manually works just as well:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/ascii-image-converter-git.git
cd ascii-image-converter-git/
makepkg -si
A Snap package exists too, but enabling snapd on Arch means an AUR install first, and the snap carries the same unmaintained warning. The AUR route above is simpler.
Install on other distributions
Fedora, openSUSE and other distributions without a maintained package can grab a binary from the GitHub releases page (currently v1.13.1). Download the amd64 archive for most modern PCs, extract it, and copy the binary into your PATH:
tar -xvzf ascii-image-converter_Linux_amd64_64bit.tar.gz
sudo cp ascii-image-converter /usr/local/bin/
Using ascii-image-converter
The basic command just needs a path or URL to an image:
ascii-image-converter path_to_image
For example:
ascii-image-converter ~/Downloads/The-Batman.jpg
On my PC gives the following output (the actual image for reference):
Add -C (or --color) to keep the original image’s colors in the output, provided your terminal supports 24-bit or 8-bit color:
ascii-image-converter -C path_to_image
Save the result as a PNG instead of printing it, with -s (or --save-img) pointed at a directory:
ascii-image-converter path_to_image -s .
More flags worth knowing
The tool has grown well past color and save options since most tutorials were written. A few worth trying:
-bor--braillerenders braille-pattern art instead of plain ASCII, for finer detail in the same space-nor--negativeinverts the output’s brightness values-d 60,30(or--dimensions) fixes the character width and height instead of guessing from your terminal size-m " .-=+#@"(or--map) supplies your own character set, ordered darkest to lightest--save-txt .saves the plain-text version instead of a PNG, useful for pasting into a README-cor--complexprints a wider array of characters for more detailed lighting density, at the cost of a busier-looking result-xor--flipXand-yor--flipYmirror the art horizontally or vertically before it prints
Run ascii-image-converter -h for the complete flag list, including GIF support and font options for saved images.
Displaying ASCII art of the Arch Linux logo in your terminal
A different kind of “ASCII art arch” search is really asking how people get that colorful penguin-adjacent logo to show up next to their CPU, kernel, and shell details in screenshots. That’s a system-info tool’s job, not ascii-image-converter’s.
Fastfetch is the current default for this. It’s written in C, supports Wayland and ships dozens of presets. Install it with pacman and run it with no arguments:
sudo pacman -S fastfetch
fastfetch
Neofetch used to be the standard choice here, but its GitHub repository was archived in 2024 and it no longer receives updates. It’s still installable on Arch through pacman -S neofetch and works fine for now, but Fastfetch is the safer long-term pick. screenFetch is a third option, installed with pacman -S screenfetch, and auto-detects your distro without any config file.
Fastfetch’s logo and layout are controlled by a config file at ~/.config/fastfetch/config.jsonc, and the tool ships around twenty presets you can preview before committing to one. Running fastfetch -c examples/10 swaps in the tenth bundled example layout, which is a quicker way to try the options than hand-editing JSON from scratch.
Grabbing a ready-made Arch Linux ASCII logo
Sometimes the goal isn’t converting anything, it’s just pasting a static Arch logo somewhere: a /etc/issue login banner, a GitHub README, a Discord bio, or a terminal MOTD. For that, skip the conversion tools entirely.
Copy one of the many hand-made ASCII renderings of the Arch logo that circulate on sites like emojicombos and in community GitLab snippets.
To use one as your console login banner, paste the art into /etc/issue with a text editor and it displays automatically the next time you log in on a TTY:
sudo nano /etc/issue
Quality varies a lot between these community renderings since anyone can submit one, so preview a few before committing to one for a public-facing README or banner.
For a logo that shows up even earlier, before login, the ArchWiki lists mkinitcpio-archlogo as an AUR package that adds a colored Arch ASCII logo to the early boot process itself, ahead of anything a login banner or fetch tool can reach.
Other ASCII art tools worth having on Arch
Beyond image conversion and distro logos, Arch’s repositories carry a small collection of ASCII art utilities that Linux nerds tend to accumulate over time:
- jp2a converts JPG images to ASCII directly, similar to ascii-image-converter but with a smaller flag set
- figlet and toilet turn short strings into large banner text, handy for splash screens or startup scripts
- cowsay wraps any message in a talking ASCII cow, and boxes draws text-mode borders around it
- Asciiville bundles a slideshow viewer, its own image-to-ASCII command and galleries of curated art, all installable as a native Arch package with
pacman -U - artem, written in Rust, is a newer image-to-ASCII converter listed on the ArchWiki alongside older tools like jp2a
- asciiquarium turns your terminal into a small animated aquarium, built on the same underlying ASCII animation techniques as the Star Wars stream
The ArchWiki’s ASCII art page keeps a running catalog of these packages, since new ones show up in the AUR faster than any single article can track.
If you’d rather watch ASCII animation than static art, ASCII Star Wars over Telnet is a fifteen-minute detour worth taking at least once.
Generating ASCII art without installing anything
Not every situation calls for a CLI tool. Browser-based generators like Coddy’s ASCII art tool convert both text (banner-style, figlet fonts) and images entirely client-side, so nothing uploads anywhere.
They’re a reasonable option for a one-off README header or a quick banner when you don’t want to install a package for a five-second task, though for repeated use the terminal tools above stay faster.
How browser converters work
These tools split an image into a grid of cells, average the brightness of each one, then map that brightness to a character of similar visual density: dense characters like @ or # for dark cells, sparse ones like . for light cells.
It’s the same approach ascii-image-converter uses locally, just running in JavaScript instead of a compiled binary.
Getting clean-looking ASCII output
Bad-looking ASCII art is usually a terminal settings problem, not a tool problem. A few things make the biggest difference:
- Use a monospace font (Fira Code, JetBrains Mono, Consolas) so every character takes up the same width and columns actually line up
- Decrease the font size or widen the terminal window before converting, since more available columns means more detail in the output
- Keep the source image high-contrast where possible, since busy, low-contrast photos lose detail once reduced to characters
- If pasting art into Markdown, wrap it in a fenced code block, since Markdown otherwise collapses the leading spaces that keep the shape intact
These apply whether the art came from ascii-image-converter, a fetch tool, or a browser generator.
Key takeaways
- ascii-image-converter converts JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP, TIFF and GIF files into terminal ASCII or braille art
- On Arch, install it from the AUR with
ascii-image-converter-binfor a prebuilt binary, or-gitto build from source - The project hasn’t been updated since November 2022, so treat it as stable but unmaintained
- Fastfetch is the current recommended tool for showing the Arch logo next to system info, since Neofetch is archived
- Ready-made ASCII Arch logos work well for
/etc/issue, READMEs, and bios without any conversion step - figlet, cowsay, toilet, boxes and Asciiville round out the wider ASCII art toolkit on Arch
- Browser-based generators work for one-off text or image art without installing anything
Frequently asked questions
Does ascii-image-converter still work on Arch Linux?
Yes. It hasn’t had a new release since November 2022, but the existing v1.13.1 binary and AUR packages still install and run correctly on current Arch systems.
What’s the fastest way to install ascii-image-converter on Arch?
Use an AUR helper like paru or yay with paru -S ascii-image-converter-bin, which installs a prebuilt binary instead of compiling from source.
How do I show the Arch Linux logo in my terminal?
Install Fastfetch with sudo pacman -S fastfetch and run fastfetch. It displays the logo alongside your system details automatically.
Is Neofetch still worth installing on Arch?
It still runs, but its GitHub repository was archived in 2024 with no further updates planned. Fastfetch is the actively maintained replacement most guides now recommend.
Can I convert an image to ASCII art without installing software?
Yes, browser-based generators handle both text banners and image conversion client-side. They’re convenient for occasional use but slower than a local CLI tool for repeated conversions.
Where do ready-made Arch Linux ASCII logos come from?
Community sites and code-snippet repositories host user-submitted ASCII renderings of the Arch logo. Quality varies since submissions aren’t curated, so preview a few before using one publicly.
Why does my ASCII art look misaligned or squished?
This almost always comes down to font. Switch your terminal or Markdown viewer to a monospace font, since proportional fonts give characters different widths and break the alignment ASCII art depends on.