Howto: Remove Fortune messages in the Terminal

[Examiner]

Hello. I am really brand-spankin' new to all of this, as a dearly beloved grandson put Linux Mint 10 on my computer, to help me, after our hard drive was "fried". I used my "terminal" for the very first time, today, attempting to research and resolve a problem with my right-click function.

My blood ran "cold" when I opened up the terminal. Greeting me, was a moose? cow? elk? - something - with a message that I guess someone thought was amusing, that said - "You will be divorced within a year."

I was not amused. After being a widow for over 10 years, and gratefully being remarried for about 2½ years...that message was about the last thing that I wanted to have greet my gaze. Frankly, I was horrified....briefly.

Remembering reading something somewhere about "fortune cookies". I thought I would look through the forums, to see why that was there. I was hoping it wasn't someone's idea of a "joke". Well, I guess it was, or is. I was not offended, but I was "taken back".

Seems to me, that those type of "fortunes" oppose the Linux Mint's own "Rules of Conduct".

Not only that, but I personally find them:
- inappropriate
- unnecessary
- unprofessional
- unworthy of a tremendously designed operating system

I heartily agree with some other posts, that they should be optional, and, I believe they should be witty, encouraging, unusual, enlightening, and uplifting.

Was really glad to find this posting, about removing the fortune cookie messages. Followed instructions, and mission accomplished.

Pardon the long "first post", however, I did wish to voice my "take" on them.

[kmstarhawk]

I agree about the fortunes: uplifting please, we get enough hard knocks in life as it is

To remove: click on Menu/Preferences/Desktop Settings/Terminal, uncheck "fortunes".

Cheers.

[kindofabuzz]

I agree about the fortunes: uplifting please, we get enough hard knocks in life as it is

To remove: click on Menu/Preferences/Desktop Settings/Terminal, uncheck "fortunes".

Cheers.

That's only in Mint 11.

[mthees]

Why would anybody want to remove those fortune cookies. I simply want to know how I can add more.

[dagon]

..I simply want to know how I can add more.

Sure about that?... http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=64915&start=0

[Oscar799]

If you search "fortunes" in Package Manager you will find some extra packs available

[mthees]

Thank you both, this has made my day.

[VGAstudent]

...Not only that, but I personally find them:
- inappropriate
- unnecessary
- unprofessional
- unworthy of a tremendously designed operating system

I heartily agree with some other posts, that they should be optional, and, I believe they should be witty, encouraging, unusual, enlightening, and uplifting.

Was really glad to find this posting, about removing the fortune cookie messages. Followed instructions, and mission accomplished.

Pardon the long "first post", however, I did wish to voice my "take" on them.

I agree, with that, I found a post about turning them on and the reverse works as well, even when activating a super user terminal with the sudo command "sudo su", it prevents the fortune cookie from appearing, where simply turning them off at the preferences window does not. The command is;

sudo gconftool-2 --set --type=bool /desktop/linuxmint/terminal/show_fortunes false

Thank you.

[sagirfahmid3]

What....what have you DONE!! WHYYY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING???
Fortunes and cowsay are the two best things about the terminal! Ok, maybe a few of the quotes and creatures are offensive, but they are still funny!
(You can always remove the offensive creature by going into the /usr/share/cowsay/cows/ folder and removing the .cow files).

If any of you are wondering whatever happened to fortunes and cowsay in LMDE and Mint 13, they have been disabled (and I am pretty sure it was because of all these over-sensitive and emotional folks who just had to go whine about it to disable it).

Ok, fear not ladies and gentlemen who actually WANT the automatic fortunes and/or cowsay;
I have made a tutorial that allows you to easily enable/disable these awesome features.
What's all this I hear about fortune and cowsay using resources and slowing down the terminal? Well duh! if you use an ancient 266MHz computer, of course! I have a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron single-core laptop and the most time it took was ~1 second to display the cowsay+fortune combo (takes less than a quarter second on my quad core, barely noticeable delay). So anyways, if anyone is interested, here is the tutorial ---> viewtopic.php?f=42&t=107877