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How To: Unlock Ubuntu's Little April Fools Joke
When it comes to April Fool’s day, even, or perhaps especially, the Ubuntu developers have a sense of humor. As a little thank you present to all their users, they’ve pushed out a little April Fools prank of their own. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but you might not think of yourself as such a good casual gamer after this.
Here is how to activate the prank: (Note that this may only work on April 1st, however I cannot be sure.)
- Make sure you have installed the latest updates. It is essential that you install all of the recent Ubuntu updates, as the prank is hidden in one of those patches. (If anyone can figure out which one, I would love to know.)
- Add the configuration file. Go to Applications > Accessories > Text Editor. Copy and paste the following lines exactly as they are:
#prank.april enable
#am.gullible trueNow save the file in your-home-directory/.aprilf/fool.conf You will have to create the .aprilf folder. Double check this for typos, just in case.
- Reboot.
- Try to play any of the games that come with GNOME. You may discover they got just a little bit harder. (See the first screenshot.)
Enjoy! If you wish to stop the prank, just delete the fool.conf file and reboot again. If the trick doesn’t work after rebooting, try rebooting several times and then trying again. If it still doesn’t work, please post the output of “echo slooflirpa|rev&&echo $USER” (without the quotes) in the comments, so that I can help you.
Warning! Please use your judgment about the person, the computer, and the prank before attempting this. Always try whatever you plan to do on your own computer or some other safe computer before doing anything.
- Set XKill to start when the user logs in Go to System > Preferences > Sessions and add an entry with the command ‘xkill’. If you have not used xkill before, it turns your cursor into an ‘x’ (may vary by distribution) and kills the process behind the next thing you click on. Watch out with this one! Using this on unsaved work would be very bad.
- Change/remove main menu shortcuts Go to System > Preferences > Main Menu. Then either just uncheck any boxes you want or switch the command associated with the application shortcuts around. Either way, the recipient of this prank will have no idea how to get their programs to launch. (You can also set one of them to the command ‘xkill’ described above. This is probably not a good idea, though, since it is very possible that the user would accidentally click on something they shouldn’t. In short, be careful and don’t do it.)
- Replace desktop background with a picture of the desktop This trick will work on any OS, but it is still one of my favorites. Just take a screenshot of the computer’s desktop without any windows open. Then set that screenshot as their desktop background. Just move some or all of the desktop icons to another folder (be sure you don’t delete them) and watch as the computer’s user tries to click on his/her icons without any luck.
- Change the terminal’s colors Know a geek who loves to use the terminal? Open terminal and go to Edit > Profiles. Then choose to edit the default profile and mess with the colors. For maximum confusion, leave the background color, but change the text color to match it. Be careful you write down the previous settings, though, if the user has changed them.
- Free the fish When you walk by the person’s computer, simply press Alt+F2 and type in “free the fish”. This will cause a fish you swim across the desktop over and over again. You will have to do it again after every reboot, though.
- Bonus! Sometimes the simple tricks are the best. Unplug the keyboard or mouse.
As stated above, be careful and use your judgment. I do not recommend using any of these ideas unless you are absolutely sure no harm will be done.
Know of any great tricks? Share them and tell us how these tricks and others have worked for you.