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theTuxRacer
Asked: 2010-12-07 05:55:20 +0800 CST

Showing a "cowsay" fortune in every new terminal session

  • 772

I wish to display a cowsay message in every terminal window. The command I use is

 fortune | cowsay

Any ideas how to make it appear whenever I start a new terminal session?

scripts bash user-profile fortune

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    • Open the file ~/.bashrc (or /etc/bash.bashrc if it should work globally for all users).

    • Add the following at the bottom of the file:

      if [ -x /usr/games/cowsay -a -x /usr/games/fortune ]; then
    fortune | cowsay
fi
    • 48

  2. BONUS: If you're using bash you can make a ~/.bash_logout file and it will execute that when you log out. Make sure to have it sleep for a second or so, or you'll never see it.

    cowsay "See you later"; sleep 1

    • 8

  3. I would consider setting a limit to the size of the fortune command requested.

    fortune -s | cowsay

    This will produce at most 160 characters. This is a good size for a greeting, anything more than that and long fortunes will flood your terminal.

    • 7

  4. I use

    fortune | cowsay -f `ls -1 /usr/share/cowsay/cows/ | sort -R | head -1` -n

    This will display a random fortune using a random 'cow'. There's probably a better way to get a random 'cow', but this works for me just fine.

    • 4

  5. Better you use .bash_profile because .bashrc is also executed at commands like scp and they will fail silently if there is any output

    I found a nice script on pastebin. currently using it.

    http://pastebin.com/f0QXTPbt

    • 2

  6. I am using

    cowsay Welcome to Bash Shell in .bashrc.

    This will be prompt every time when you open the terminal.

    • 0