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

Solution 1:

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

Solution 2:

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

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

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

Solution 3:

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.