The Cowsay program is very useful for printing information in your terminal. There are quite a few cow files allowing many useful avatars to print in your terminal.
Install this today.
jason@Yog-Sothoth » ~ » $ sudo apt install cowsay
Then run this command to list all the available *.cow files.
jason@Yog-Sothoth » ~ » $ ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows/ apt.cow cock.cow dragon.cow flaming-sheep.cow koala.cow moofasa.cow sheep.cow suse.cow unipony.cow bud-frogs.cow cower.cow duck.cow ghostbusters.cow kosh.cow moose.cow skeleton.cow three-eyes.cow unipony-smaller.cow bunny.cow daemon.cow elephant.cow gnu.cow luke-koala.cow pony.cow snowman.cow turkey.cow vader.cow calvin.cow default.cow elephant-in-snake.cow hellokitty.cow mech-and-cow.cow pony-smaller.cow stegosaurus.cow turtle.cow vader-koala.cow cheese.cow dragon-and-cow.cow eyes.cow kiss.cow milk.cow ren.cow stimpy.cow tux.cow www.cow
Here is an example, using the Dragon and Cow to tell us the time.
jason@jason-Lenovo-H50-55:~/Documents$ cowsay -f dragon-and-cow `date` _______________________________ < Mon 27 Jun 2022 08:43:29 AEST > ------------------------------- \ ^ /^ \ / \ // \ \ |\___/| / \// .\ \ /O O \__ / // | \ \ *----* / / \/_/ // | \ \ \ | @___@` \/_ // | \ \ \/\ \ 0/0/| \/_ // | \ \ \ \ 0/0/0/0/| \/// | \ \ | | 0/0/0/0/0/_|_ / ( // | \ _\ | / 0/0/0/0/0/0/`/,_ _ _/ ) ; -. | _ _\.-~ / / ,-} _ *-.|.-~-. .~ ~ \ \__/ `/\ / ~-. _ .-~ / \____(oo) *. } { / ( (--) .----~-.\ \-` .~ //__\\ \__ Ack! ///.----..< \ _ -~ // \\ ///-._ _ _ _ _ _ _{^ - - - - ~ |
Let Calvin tell you your IP address in your terminal.
jason@jason-Lenovo-H50-55:~/Documents$ cowsay -f calvin `ip a | awk '/inet / { print $2 }' | sed -n 2p` ________________ < 192.168.1.2/24 > ---------------- \ ., \ . .TR d' \ k,l .R.b .t .Je \ .P q. a|.b .f .Z% .b .h .E` # J: 2` . .,.a .E ,L.M' ?:b `| ..J9!`., q,.h.M` `.., ..,""` ..2"` .M, J8` `: ` 3; . Jk ..., `^7"90c. j, ,! .7"'`j,.| .n. ... j, 7' .r` 4: L `... ..,m. J` ..,|.. J` 7TWi ..JJ,.: % oo ,. ...., .,E 3 7`g.M: P 41 JT7"' O. .J,; `` V"7N. G. ""Q+ .Zu.,!` Z` .9.. . J&..J! . ,: 7"9a JM"! .5J. .. ..F` 78a.. ` ..2' J9Ksaw0"' .EJ?A...a. q...g...gi .m...qa..,y: .HQFNB&...mm ,Z|,m.a.,dp .,?f` ,E?:"^7b `A| . .F^^7'^4, .MMMMMMMMMMMQzna, ...f"A.JdT J: Jp, `JNa..........A....af` `^^^^^'` |
Or what about a milk carton listing all of your network interfaces?
jason@jason-Lenovo-H50-55:~/Documents$ cowsay -f milk `ip link | grep -Po "(?<=^\d: |^\d\d:)[^:]+(?=:)"` ____________ < lo enp0s25 > ------------ \ ____________ \ |__________| / /\ / / \ /___________/___/| | | | | ==\ /== | | | O O | \ \ | | < | \ \| /| | \ \ / | \_____/ | / / / /| | / /| /||\| | /||\/ -------------| | | | | <__/ \__> |
Cowsay is very useful, there are many ways it could be used in a script to tell the user something in a fun and entertaining way. Why not try it today and see what you can come up with?
if the cowsay-off package is installed, there are more adult cow files installed, such as this one.
jason@jason-Lenovo-H50-55:~/Documents$ cowsay -f bong `ps` _______________________________________ / PID TTY TIME CMD 11624 pts/0 00:00:00 \ \ bash 13069 pts/0 00:00:00 ps / --------------------------------------- \ \ ^__^ _______/(oo) /\/( /(__) | W----|| |~| || || |~| ~~ |~| ~ |_| o |#|/ _+#+_ |
A cow hitting the bong.
Many people are offended by this package, but in Ubuntu 18 it is optional, and I assume in Debian as well, so get over it. it is pretty funny. Also, it is up to the user to decide what they have on their system if it is at home.