How to show ASCII art at the top of the terminal when it's opened?

As you can see on this screenshot of Mik's Guake he has a startup message of ASCII art when he opens it, and that's what I'd like to do, can someone help me?

4

10 Answers

Open your terminal with CTRL+ALT+T and type as

nano ~/.bashrc

There type as

echo " Hi Zignd" then close and save it.

then type this command to reload bashrc .

source ~/.bashrc

You will what you want.

for example :I made my self.

3

To extend @snow's answer, put the code below from the very first line of your .bashrc. And be proud to be ubuntu user :)

echo "MMMMMMMMMMMMKlxMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMW0occlxNM"
echo "MMMMMMMMMMMMOcxMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMKOXMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNdcoxkOlc0"
echo "MMMMMMMMMMMMOcxMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMdcOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMkoO0lckkcl"
echo "dxWMMMM0d0MMOcoxdooxONMMMOdXMMMMXdkMMWkxdoodxONMMMdcldddkMXdxWMMMM0dKM0coOxk0xcd"
echo "ccNMMMMxckMMOco0XNXkclKMMxc0MMMMKcoMMNllKXXXkclXMMdcxKKKXMKclNMMMMkc0MM0oclldokN"
echo "ccNMMMMxckMMOcxMMMMMOclWMxc0MMMMKcoMMNllWMMMMdcOMMdcOMMMMMKclNMMMMkc0MMMMNXXNWMM"
echo "ccNMMMMxckMMOcxMMMMMKccNMxc0MMMMKcoMMNllWMMMMxckMMdcOMMMMMKclNMMMMkc0MMMMMMMMMMM"
echo "lcKMMMMxckMMOcxMMMMWdcxMMkcxMMMMKcoMMNllWMMMMkckMMxckMMMMMNccKMMMMkc0MMMMMMMMMMM"
echo "0lcxkkklckMMOclkOkxlckWMMNocdkkkdcoMMNllWMMMMkckMMXlcxkkxNM0lcxkkkoc0MMMMMMMMMMM"
echo "MNxlccloxXMMXxolccokNMMMMMWOolclox0MMWxkWMMMM0d0MMMXxlclxNMMNklcclokXMMMMMMMMMMM"

OR

echo " _ _ "
echo " _ _| |__ _ _ _ __ | |_ _ _ "
echo "| | | | '_ \| | | | '_ \| __| | | |"
echo "| |_| | |_) | |_| | | | | |_| |_| |"
echo " \__,_|_.__/ \__,_|_| |_|\__|\__,_|"

The secret to these image like characters is to use an image converter to ASCII characters. There are lots of free tools in the wild like toilet or figlet but I personally use jp2a.

You can also use this site for generating text to ASCII instead of image to ASCII.

3

How do we apply ASCII art into the terminal?

There are numerous ways of generating ASCII art, including specialized software and manual building but there are also websites that generate ASCII art by simply entering the desired name.

First we need to generate/create the ASCII "code": visit this website, type the desired name and copy the "live" generated ASCII result.

Then create a text file named art and paste into it the above mentioned generated ASCII result, copy the art file in your home folder (navigate here by clicking Nautilus sidebar's Home), open the .bashrc file (to make it viewable, press Ctrl+H) and paste on the bottom of the page

cat art

Worth mentioning:

The above-mentioned site contains hundreds of different fonts for generating ASCII that feature various sizes, 3D-look, etc.

Source

As for images to ASCII go to this website

First generate a ascii drawing. I recommend asciio:

apt-get install asciio

Example:

 .-------. | Hi | '-------' ^ (\_/) '----- (O.o) (> <)

Copy and paste the drawing in file:

vim /home/<youruser>/banner

Finally, add at the end of file to read when you open a new bash:

echo "cat banner" >> /home/<youruser>/.bashrc

Open another terminal:

4

This one takes a png image file and outputs a facsimile onto your terminal

If you have nodejs installed then issue

npm install -g picture-tube

then put this into bottom of your ~/.bashrc

echo "picture-tube --cols 60 /tmp/justpng/orbifold_333_shell.png" picture-tube --cols 60 /tmp/justpng/orbifold_333_shell.png

code is at

enjoy

sudo apt-get install figlet
echo "Hello world!" | figlet | color_it.sh 54

cat color_it.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash
## A.M.Danischewski 2015+(c) Free - for (all (uses and
## modifications)) - except you must keep this notice intact.
declare INPUT_TXT=""
declare ADD_LF="\n"
declare -i DONE=0
declare -r COLOR_NUMBER="${1:-247}"
declare -r ASCII_FG="\\033[38;05;"
declare -r COLOR_OUT="${ASCII_FG}${COLOR_NUMBER}m"
function show_colors() { ## perhaps will add bg 48 to first loop eventually for fgbg in 38; do for color in {0..256} ; do echo -en "\\033[${fgbg};5;${color}m ${color}\t\\033[0m"; (($((${color}+1))%10==0)) && echo; done; echo; done
}
if [[ ! $# -eq 1 || ${1} =~ ^-. ]]; then show_colors echo " Usage: ${0##*/} <color fg>" echo " E.g. echo \"Hello world!\" | figlet | ${0##*/} 54"
else while IFS= read -r PIPED_INPUT || { DONE=1; ADD_LF=""; }; do PIPED_INPUT=$(sed 's#\\#\\\\#g' <<< "${PIPED_INPUT}") INPUT_TXT="${INPUT_TXT}${PIPED_INPUT}${ADD_LF}" ((${DONE})) && break; done echo -en "${COLOR_OUT}${INPUT_TXT}\\033[00m"
fi 

its typical to create a dir ~/bin and make all those files visible

mkdir ~/bin
# ... put above color_it.sh as file ~/bin/color_it.sh
chmod +x ~/bin/color_it.sh # make it executable
export PATH=${HOME}/bin:${PATH} # add this line to your ~/.bashrc
echo "Hello world!" | figlet | color_it.sh 34

You can add interesting ASCII arts on your terminal without leaving your terminal. cowsay has some of the coolest ASCII arts and piping fortune outputs into cowsay can take this to another level. Let's see how this is done, open your terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install cowsay

Now cowsay is installed let's have some fun, add the following command

cowsay I am in a good mooooo-d.

If you don't like the cow, there is a mystical zoo within your terminal, type

cowsay -f dragon Who dared to wake me up?

To bring up a list of all the animals in your mystical zoo type cowsay -l. If you prefer 'thinking animal' over talking one try

cowthink -f <animal name> <your message>

< > are to be ignored. If you want to display a same custom message each time you log in please continue, otherwise skip to the next step.

Copy your ASCII art and go to the home directory. Create a file <newfile.txt>, paste your ASCII art inside the file, and save it. Open a file.bashrc from the home directory. Add the following on the bottom line of the file and save it.

cat <newfile.txt>

You are done :) reopen your terminal.

---

Let's make your animal a little more intelligent by adding fortune

sudo apt-get install fortune

Go to the home directory and open .bashrc and add the following as top line of the file

fortune | cowsay -f <your animal>

Now save the file and you are done :)

Run these commands as root

1. Install figlet

   apt-get install figlet

2. For editing .bashrc file, we need a text editor, here we use leafpad

   apt-get install leafpad

3. Edit the .bashrc file located in the root folder.

   leafpad /root/.bashrc

4. Scroll down to the end of the file then type figlet your name

   figlet Anonymous

5. Type in the next line echo "your message"

   echo "We are Anonymous"

6. Save the file (File->Save)

Finally, relaunch your terminal again with the root privileges

1

Here's my terminal slash screen:

It combines elements of other answers here including figlet and toilet depending on which is already installed on your system. The full setup (bash script) is explained here:

• Terminal splash screen with Weather, Calendar, Time & Sysinfo?

Show the colorful TEXT ART in Linux Terminal

Follow these steps:

1. Install figlet and lolcat:

   sudo apt install figlet lolcat

2. Install git:

   sudo apt install git

3. Download some figlet fonts from GitHub:

   cd Desktop
   git clone 

   or visit the link:

4. Copy all the font files from figlet-fonts directory to /usr/share/figlet/:

   sudo cp figlet-fonts/* /usr/share/figlet/

5. For editing the .bashrc file, we need a text editor. Here we use nano:

   sudo apt-get install nano

6. Open the .bashrc file (located in the root folder) in the nano editor:

   sudo nano /root/.bashrc

7. Scroll down to the end of the file (press the down arrow key) and then type the following:

   figlet -f font_name your_text | lolcat

   For example:

   figlet -f 3d Hello World! | lolcat

8. To save the file press Ctrl+O then hit Enter. Then press Ctrl+X to exit.

9. Now launch your terminal with admin privilegesand you will see the text art. :)

Note: The text art color will automatically change each time you launch the terminal (with admin privileges).

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