Random quotes and creatures using fortune and cowsay in Linux terminal

Install Cowsay

You can install cowsay in Debian, Ubuntu or Kali Linux or any aptitude/apt-get based distro using the following command:

apt-get install cowsay
sudo apt-get install cowsay

Just like fortune, cowsay is available in all the basic standard repositories, otherwise just add them for your respective Linux version.

Similar to fortune, you can install cowsay in Redhat, CentOS, Fedora of any yum based Linux distros using the following command:

yum install cowsay
sudo yum install cowsay

If you have a different distro, the command is pretty much the same.

Random quotes and creatures using Fortune and Cowsay in Linux terminal - blackMORE Ops -2

Type in cowsay a sentence/word and a cow will repeat that in your terminal.

Exciting! A talking cow … Well I guess I could go and watch a movie now!

List and location of cowsay files

cowsay creatures are located here:

root@kali:~# ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows/
apt.cow                ghostbusters.cow  sheep.cow
beavis.zen.cow         gnu.cow           skeleton.cow
bong.cow               head-in.cow       snowman.cow
bud-frogs.cow          hellokitty.cow    sodomized-sheep.cow
bunny.cow              kiss.cow          stegosaurus.cow
calvin.cow             kitty.cow         stimpy.cow
cheese.cow             koala.cow         suse.cow
cock.cow               kosh.cow          three-eyes.cow
cower.cow              luke-koala.cow    turkey.cow
daemon.cow             mech-and-cow.cow  turtle.cow
default.cow            meow.cow          tux.cow
dragon-and-cow.cow     milk.cow          unipony.cow
dragon.cow             moofasa.cow       unipony-smaller.cow
duck.cow               moose.cow         vader.cow
elephant.cow           mutilated.cow     vader-koala.cow
elephant-in-snake.cow  pony.cow          www.cow
eyes.cow               pony-smaller.cow
flaming-sheep.cow      ren.cow

Random quotes and creatures using Fortune and Cowsay in Linux terminal - blackMORE Ops -4

Random Fortune and Cowsay in Linux terminal

Now it’s time to put everything together. You have two options.

  1. You can add random fortune and cowsay for a single user
  2. You can add random fortune and cowsay for all users.

Option 1. Random fortune and cowsay for single user

To add random fortune and cowsay for a single user, you need to edit .bashrc file in the users home directory.

vi ~/.bashrc

Now add the following line at the bottom of the file:

if [ -x /usr/games/cowsay -a -x /usr/games/fortune ]; then

Save and exit. Reopen terminal and you will see a random creature quoting a different phrase/jokes for that user.

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  1. BMO if you had a Like button. I would put like on everything I reed so far! Thanks for sharing knowledge, it’s Very usefull for begginers as me :)

  2. This script as written does not work on openSuse or Manjaro (based on Arch Linux) for two reasons:
    1. The binaries for cowsay and fortune are not in /usr/games but in /usr/bin.
    2. The data files for cowsay are not in /usr/share/cowsay/cows, but in /usr/share/cows.
    So the script has to be changed:

    if [ -x /usr/bin/cowsay -a -x /usr/bin/fortune ]; then
    fortune | cowsay -f $(ls /usr/share/cows/ | shuf -n1)

    • Thank you. I’ve only added Debian and Redhat based commands here. I’ll update the post with your comments soon.

    • You can also add this on your “$HOME/.bash_aliases”, which should be called from your “$HOME/.bashrc”. As long as you path is setup, it should execute independent of file location:

      if [[ $(which cowsay > /dev/null) -eq 0 ]] && [[ $(which fortune > /dev/null) -eq 0 ]] ; then
      cowsay -f $(ls $(cowsay -l | awk ‘NR==1 {print $4}’ | sed ‘s/://’) | shuf -n1) $(fortune)

      And you can also play with COWPATH if you want to do it in a different way.

      • Correcting my code:

        if [[ $(which cowsay > /dev/null ; echo $?) -eq 0 ]] && [[ $(which fortune > /dev/null ; echo $?) -eq 0 ]] ; then

  3. BMO, I have this question, I’ve been a windows user for many years, and is quite awkwarding to work on a OS whitout antivirus and firewall! Feels like driving whithout seatbelt (pass the expression!) I’ve tryied clamav and fgwc firewall on ubuntu but seem to not work on Kali! What’s your opinion about antivirus and firewalls for kali? Do you have any? how do you have your protect system setup?

  4. Hmm… Interesting…!!! Thanx for Sharing man..!
    Currently i am generating Random Quotes on my terminal by editing .bashrc.. it looks someting like this…

    # To extract ones digit of second from system clock

    #a=`date|cut -c 19`
    a=`date|cut -c 18-19`

    # Array containing quotes- you can edit it to your favorite quotes

    var=(” Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Samuel Beckett ” “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Harriet Beecher Stowe ” “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Thomas A. Edison” “Life isn’t about getting and having, it’s about giving and being.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Kevin Kruse” “You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Beverly Sills” “Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Albert Einstein” “Good or Evil is irrelevant, it’s the best story that wins!

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t- El_Diablo ” “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Oprah Winfrey” “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Wayne Gretzky” “Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Mark Twain” “People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Andrew Carnegie” “Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Rita Mae Brown” “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Robert F. Kennedy” “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Walt Disney ” “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Winston Churchill” “For certain is death for the born,
    And certain is birth for the dead;
    Therefore over the inevitable
    Thou shouldst not grieve.

    \n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t-Bhagavad Gita”)

    # Welcome message ! Edit it with your name

    NC=’\e[0m’ # No Color
    echo “**************** Welcome back El Diablo! *****************”

    echo -e “${cuscol}\n${var[$a]}${NC}”



    i was looking for something like what u shared.. generating those creatures and all…..
    again thanx for sharing… i found what i wanted…. time for me to move on.. :D

  5. Is there a tutorial out there to make additionalascii art and then convert those to .cow files?

  6. can you do this on a mac command line?

  7. On Debian 8 this works:
    cowsay -f /usr/share/cowsay/cows/$(ls /usr/share/cowsay/cows | sort -R |head -1) “$(fortune )”

  8. root@localhost:~# cowsay
    bash: cowsay: command not found

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