How can I have my terminal start with an ASCII banner? [duplicate]

How can I have my terminal in Ubuntu start with an ASCII banner every time from default?

3 Answers

Your .bashrc file is executed every time you open a new terminal, so if you add this line to it:

echo "____ENTER_ASCII_ART_HERE_____"

That should do it

The is a command called banner that will print a banner of ascii art. Install by running

sudo apt-get install sysvbanner

And place a line in your .bashrc file so that it will run every time you start your terminal:

banner EXAMPLE BANNER

And it will print

####### # # # # # ###### # #######
# # # # # ## ## # # # #
# # # # # # # # # # # # #
##### # # # # # # ###### # #####
# # # ####### # # # # #
# # # # # # # # # #
####### # # # # # # # ####### #######
###### # # # # # ####### ######
# # # # ## # ## # # # #
# # # # # # # # # # # # #
###### # # # # # # # # ##### ######
# # ####### # # # # # # # # #
# # # # # ## # ## # # #
###### # # # # # # ####### # #

You could use cowsay to show a particular message coming from one of its ascii animals; there are elephants, ducks, dragons, and many more humorous examples.

sudo apt-get install cowsay

List the animals with cowsay -l and then at the top of your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_aliases, place, for example, the 'eyes' object:

cowsay -f eyes "Welcome $USER"

You could take advantage of shell variables like $USER or $SHELL, etc, and have them printed to the command line. For how to add the timestamp, see this related question.