The ascii art is stored in a file called fursona-ascii-art.txt as text.
In the screenshot, OP has run the command cat fursona-ascii-art.txt.
The cat command when used like this will take the contents of the file named, and print it out to the terminal, showing what is in the file, so this is how they have shown it here.
The cat command can also be used to join text in files together (cat is short for “concatenate”).
Another way you can read files from the command line is with the command less. Less will paginate the contents of the file, and you can then hit spacebar to move down one page, and B to move up one page. While looking at a file with less you can also hit / followed by a search term to search the file. To move to the next item found, you can hit the N key. To quit the less program, you can either scroll all the way to the bottom with spacebar, or you can hit Q to quit.
I think I misread the photo. I meant to ask how people have art in their terminal just as they open it.
That said, thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. Everything you said is new to me and all very helpful! :) seriously, people like you make Lemmy worth it, teaching and being kind
No worries, I am always really happy to see people who are new as learning Linux has been very fun for me over the last decade or more, and I love to see people discovering it and learning about it.
Regarding your actual question about having art in your terminal as you open it, you could store an ascii file like that and then put a cat command like that at the end of the hidden .bashrc file located in your home directory in most cases.
Before doing any of the following, I recommend making a back up of your .bashrc in case things go awry. You can do that by doing mv ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrcBackup.
Assuming you are using a bash terminal, there will be a .bashrc file located in your home directory. Files that start with . are hidden. In the terminal you can use the ls -a command followed by a directory name (for a different directory than the one you are in), or by itself (for the current directory you are in) to show all files including hidden ones such as this.
The .bashrc file runs automatically whenever a user opens a terminal/logs in to the command line, so if I opened a terminal, I could do the following to make it so that ascii art shows up every time I open a new terminal.
First I would create some file in my home directory that contains the ascii art. Lets assume I made that and that file is called my-art.txt.
Then I could run these commands in the terminal to set it up.
Note that cd by itself will move you to your home directory, ~/ means “the folder that is my home directory”, echo will send the following string to the next command, and >> tells the output of the last command to get appended to the file named after it.
cdecho"cat ~/my-art.txt" >> .bashrc
This very simply just makes sure I am in my home directory, and then appends “cat ~/my-art.txt” to the end of my .bashrc file.
Now when I close and reopen my terminal, the contents of my-art.txt will be printed out as the terminal opens every time.
To undo this, you just have to remove that cat command from the end of .bashrc.
When it comes to editing files in the command line, there are super powerful tools such as vi, but they are hard to get the hang of initially, so if you want to edit files from the command line easily, I recommend using the nano command to start out as it is much more straight forward starting out.
Finally, two great commands for when you are starting out especially are man and apropos. man followed by the name of a command will show you the man(ual) page for that command, telling you how the command works, what options it has, and what its for etc.
apropos followed by a search term will show you commands that contain that search term in their short description, so its useful to learn about new commands even if you don’t know what they are called. For example if I knew I wanted a command to edit text in a file, I could try apropos editor, and you would likely see nano and vi among the commands listed there.
Do you use Arch
nop no i’m sorry, i’m a beginner still, so no arch yet
I am a beginner too. What district are you using and how hard was it to setup this art? I haven’t done it yet.
For some reason furries always use arch, so I was making a silly joke. I wonder why?
It’s just ASCII art, I think. One could make this manually in any OS, or have it be generated by an ASCII Art generator
How do you then add it to the terminal though?
The ascii art is stored in a file called
fursona-ascii-art.txtas text.In the screenshot, OP has run the command
cat fursona-ascii-art.txt.The cat command when used like this will take the contents of the file named, and print it out to the terminal, showing what is in the file, so this is how they have shown it here.
The cat command can also be used to join text in files together (cat is short for “concatenate”).
Another way you can read files from the command line is with the command
less.Lesswill paginate the contents of the file, and you can then hitspacebarto move down one page, andBto move up one page. While looking at a file with less you can also hit/followed by a search term to search the file. To move to the next item found, you can hit theNkey. To quit the less program, you can either scroll all the way to the bottom withspacebar, or you can hitQto quit.I think I misread the photo. I meant to ask how people have art in their terminal just as they open it.
That said, thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. Everything you said is new to me and all very helpful! :) seriously, people like you make Lemmy worth it, teaching and being kind
No worries, I am always really happy to see people who are new as learning Linux has been very fun for me over the last decade or more, and I love to see people discovering it and learning about it.
Regarding your actual question about having art in your terminal as you open it, you could store an ascii file like that and then put a cat command like that at the end of the hidden
.bashrcfile located in your home directory in most cases.Before doing any of the following, I recommend making a back up of your
.bashrcin case things go awry. You can do that by doingmv ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrcBackup.Assuming you are using a bash terminal, there will be a
.bashrcfile located in your home directory. Files that start with.are hidden. In the terminal you can use thels -acommand followed by a directory name (for a different directory than the one you are in), or by itself (for the current directory you are in) to show all files including hidden ones such as this.The
.bashrcfile runs automatically whenever a user opens a terminal/logs in to the command line, so if I opened a terminal, I could do the following to make it so that ascii art shows up every time I open a new terminal.First I would create some file in my home directory that contains the ascii art. Lets assume I made that and that file is called my-art.txt.
Then I could run these commands in the terminal to set it up.
Note that
cdby itself will move you to your home directory,~/means “the folder that is my home directory”,echowill send the following string to the next command, and>>tells the output of the last command to get appended to the file named after it.cd echo "cat ~/my-art.txt" >> .bashrcThis very simply just makes sure I am in my home directory, and then appends “
cat ~/my-art.txt” to the end of my.bashrcfile.Now when I close and reopen my terminal, the contents of my-art.txt will be printed out as the terminal opens every time.
To undo this, you just have to remove that cat command from the end of
.bashrc.When it comes to editing files in the command line, there are super powerful tools such as
vi, but they are hard to get the hang of initially, so if you want to edit files from the command line easily, I recommend using thenanocommand to start out as it is much more straight forward starting out.Finally, two great commands for when you are starting out especially are
manandapropos.manfollowed by the name of a command will show you the man(ual) page for that command, telling you how the command works, what options it has, and what its for etc.aproposfollowed by a search term will show you commands that contain that search term in their short description, so its useful to learn about new commands even if you don’t know what they are called. For example if I knew I wanted a command to edit text in a file, I could tryapropos editor, and you would likely seenanoandviamong the commands listed there.Fyi, you do not need to install arch to use arch’s package manager, you can simply use distrobox