If you want to use Mastodon through a command line interface (CLI) or text-based user interface (TUI), there’s a free open source tool you can install called “toot” ⧉. It can be installed on a variety of Linux distributions and Mac too.
(By the way, despite the similar name, it has no connection to the mobile apps Toot! or Tooot.)
There’s also an updated TUI tool called Tooi ⧉ by the same developer.