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?
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Mechanical snail
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theTuxRacer
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6 Answers
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Open the file
~/.bashrc(or/etc/bash.bashrcif 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
htorque
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1does the -x flag mean "if exists" ? – theTuxRacer Dec 06 '10 at 16:58
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3Yes, "-x" tests if that file exists and is executable. For more information on the the `test` program see its man page: `man test` (`[ ... ]` is short for `test ...`). – htorque Dec 06 '10 at 17:03
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1Works for bash on Windows 10 also! – LShaver Aug 14 '16 at 21:10
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added `clear` and then the above command to the end `.profile` file as that is what is called on logins. – Yashash Gaurav Dec 17 '20 at 07:06
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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
Joey1978
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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.
poulter7
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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.
user418681
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1For Mac: `fortune | cowsay -f \`ls -1 /usr/local/Cellar/cowsay/3.04/share/cows/*.cow | sort | head -1\` -n` – jibran Oct 17 '16 at 07:08
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Whoa I knew mac was Unix-based, didn't realize it even had cowsay and stuff!! – Robert Sederholm Jun 05 '18 at 07:22
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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.
Schwertspize
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I am using
cowsay Welcome to Bash Shell in .bashrc.
This will be prompt every time when you open the terminal.
Linuxian
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