Display an image from the Linux console

Question

I've created a minimal Linux system which boots to the console and does not contain any kind of graphical environment.

I now want to display an image file from my C program or a bash script on the screen.

How can I do this?

Answer 1

If your system has a framebuffer device, i.e. /dev/fb0, then there's the fbv framebuffer viewer utility for JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP images. (It's available as a target package in Buildroot.)
And if you have a suitable raw image (e.g. a framebuffer capture), then that file can be written directly to the framebuffer device.
See Super fast Linux splashscreen for more details.

Answer 2

There are a few options.

• If you have no “graphics” hardware, per se, you can use something like libaa or libcaca to convert an image into “ASCII ART.”
• If you have PC-type VGA-type hardware available (at least), you can use something like svgalib to write to the hardware, eg, using zgv
• If your device has a video framebuffer, you can write directly to the framebuffer device, as well.