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#1 2008-06-26 05:50:48

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

/etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

NOTE: If you have no idea what "/dev/vc/1" or "text console" or "tty" means, know that these don't interest you and/or you don't find these interesting, or you boot to runlevel 5, this isn't for you.

NOTE 2: This has a known bug - if your screen is 80 columns wide and your hostname is over 11 chars long, due to the layout of this file it will wrap to the 2nd line.

Some time ago, I learned how agetty (the program that displays /etc/issue and manages login) is able to display certain types of "non-static" information by way of specific "escape sequences" that were agetty's own. Fast forward to now, when X has completely died (majorly buggy graphics configuration), I'm entirely in textmode (framebuffer - I just won't go there, too much work)... and so I decide to make a new /etc/issue for myself.

First I worked on the logo, which after a few attempts I decided to just accept how slashes "fall" because trying anything else just turns out like a Christmas tree, then with the inside of the logo done using full stops I had a crack at the font. I drew the "linux" first then figured out how to use pipe chars to "simulate" 'bold fonts' for the "arch", and I also tried to capture the essence of the fact that the font/logo is gradiented to an extent. The next day, a little mental visualization work later and I'd figured out how to lay out the various bits of info I wanted.

This is the result.

echo -e '\e[H\e[2J' > issue
echo -e '                                                            \e[1;30m| \e[34m\\s \\r' >> issue
echo -e '       \e[36;1m/\\\\                      \e[37m||     \e[36m| |                   \e[30m|' >> issue
echo -e '      \e[36m/  \\\\                     \e[37m||     \e[36m|     _               \e[30m| \e[32m\\t' >> issue
echo -e '     \e[1;36m/ \e[0;36m.. \e[1m\\\\   \e[37m//==\\\\\\\\ ||/= /==\\\\ ||/=\\\\  \e[36m| | |/ \\\\ |  | \\\\ /     \e[30m| \e[32m\\d' >> issue
echo -e '    \e[0;36m/ .  . \\\\  \e[37m||  || ||   |    ||  || \e[36m| | |  | |  |  X      \e[1;30m|' >> issue
echo -e '   \e[0;36m/  .  .  \\\\ \e[37m\\\\\\\\==/| ||   \\\\==/ ||  || \e[36m| | |  | \\\\_/| / \\\\     \e[1;30m| \e[31m\\U' >> issue
echo -e '  \e[0;36m/ ..    .. \\\\   \e[0;37mA simple, lightweight linux distribution.  \e[1;30m|' >> issue
echo -e ' \e[0;36m/_\x27        `_\\\\                                             \e[1;30m| \e[35m\\l \e[0mon \e[1;33m\\n' >> issue
echo -e ' \e[0m' >> issue
echo -e '' >> issue

"Ew, what do I do with THAT? hmm"

Save it to a file or just paste it directly into your terminal. It will create the file "issue" in the directory you're in containing the appropriate escape codes.

Here's an example of how you could "import" this:

$ cat > makeissue
<carefully paste code here, press CTRL+D when done>
$ chmod +x makeissue
$ su
Password: ******************************
# cd /etc
# mv issue issue-old
# ~/makeissue
# exit
exit
$

There are no dangers in running this as root - it just echos some escape sequences to a file, so you can see we run this script as root so the new "issue" file is placed appropriately in /etc, with root ownership, exactly as the original /etc/issue... and as always, we save the old version tongue

"Great, but `cat /etc/issue' produces something that looks like a birds' nest had a fight with a tree."
Agetty pays special attention to backslashes (\), so they have to be doubled (\\) when I want to show one. And yes, this breaks the layout when anything except agetty displays it.

"Um, I'm really clueless. Now what?"
Logout, examine, then log back in or switch to a free un-logged-in tty.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-06-26 08:17:47)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#2 2008-06-26 06:27:18

sniffles
Member
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 275

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Not bad, I guess. I just use "clear > /etc/issue", but I can see how something like what you've done might work for some users.

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#3 2008-06-26 08:07:12

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Well, true... but then again, even if I hated color and/or ASCII art I'd at least list the tty name in it since I have 12 text logins tongue

(No X, remember?)

-dav7


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#4 2008-06-26 11:49:16

Ankka
Member
From: Finland
Registered: 2007-04-08
Posts: 98

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

dav7 wrote:

I have 12 text logins tongue

Why not just one or two with screen?

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#5 2008-06-26 12:28:25

fukawi2
Ex-Administratorino
From: .vic.au
Registered: 2007-09-28
Posts: 6,217
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Ankka wrote:
dav7 wrote:

I have 12 text logins tongue

Why not just one or two with screen?

CTRL+A, CTRL+N is more keystrokes than ALT+Fx

Us Linux people are lazy remember... That's why we have mv instead of move, cp instead of copy, and Linux instead of Windows

It's all about saving keystrokes!!

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#6 2008-06-26 12:42:23

Cerebral
Forum Fellow
From: Waterloo, ON, CA
Registered: 2005-04-08
Posts: 3,108
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Love it - using it as my /etc/issue now

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#7 2008-06-26 14:22:43

Barrucadu
Member
From: York, England
Registered: 2008-03-30
Posts: 1,158
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Great! I don't often switch to a TTY - only if X is behaving weirdly or if I need to run a shellscript that absolutely cannot crash or something, but now I have something wonderful to look at when I do.
Well done.

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#8 2008-06-26 15:10:10

wuischke
Member
From: Suisse Romande
Registered: 2007-01-06
Posts: 630

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Could anybody post a screenshot? I'm interested in how it looks.

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#9 2008-06-26 15:16:50

sniffles
Member
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 275

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

wuischke wrote:

Could anybody post a screenshot? I'm interested in how it looks.

Then do the right thing and -try- it ?

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#10 2008-06-27 02:52:17

tigrmesh
IRC Op
From: Florida, US
Registered: 2007-12-11
Posts: 794

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Beautiful.  Thank you.

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#11 2008-06-27 03:22:56

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

fukawi2 wrote:
Ankka wrote:
dav7 wrote:

I have 12 text logins tongue

Why not just one or two with screen?

CTRL+A, CTRL+N is more keystrokes than ALT+Fx

Us Linux people are lazy remember... That's why we have mv instead of move, cp instead of copy, and Linux instead of Windows

It's all about saving keystrokes!!

off topic here, but if you wanna be picky about it, you can set a single keystroke to screen windows tongue  f1-10 go to screens 0-9 for me smile

I plan on testing this out on my laptop as soon as i get a chance.

Last edited by rson451 (2008-06-27 03:23:13)


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
--
http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#12 2008-06-27 04:20:29

dav7
Member
From: Australia
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 674

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Everybody:
Wow, thanks for the response!

Regarding screen... yeah. I don't really want to venture over there yet. Plus, using screen wrecks my prompt (see the photo below, I use one of the chars from the box drawing charset). =P

wuischke:
Request granted, I took a photo of my 19" CRT showing both my login banner and "normal user" / "superuser" prompt (but I forgot to change to the superuser dir which I also customized, but whatever):
loginphotogi6.th.jpg
I also tried taking a shot without flash, but the result is that there are too many reflections and the display's contents are also not as dark, which I think suits a shot like this. Plus, the reflection of the flash isn't preventing you from seeing anything tongue

Note: It really was 1:37PM when I took the shot lol
Note 2: I use the Cyr_a8x8 font which you can grab by running

setfont Cyr_a8x8

from any console.

-dav7

Last edited by dav7 (2008-06-27 04:24:47)


Windows was made for looking at success from a distance through a wall of oversimplicity. Linux removes the wall, so you can just walk up to success and make it your own.
--
Reinventing the wheel is fun. You get to redefine pi.

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#13 2008-06-27 06:20:56

sniffles
Member
Registered: 2008-01-23
Posts: 275

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Well CLI-only is cool and all, but LINES x COLUMNS is terribly limited. I don't know how you (dav7) overcome this issue. Using framebuffers -somewhat- fixes this problem, but then the problem of slow output appears.

As for the screen thing, think of split screens, and what not other features which you would not get with pure terminals.

Personally, as far as my software development laptop goes, I found that terminals give me too low "lines / columns" values; framebuffers are too slow. So I ended up using minimalistic window managers + x terminal emulators -> win.

</threadhijacking>

Last edited by sniffles (2008-06-27 06:24:22)

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#14 2008-06-27 07:51:49

fukawi2
Ex-Administratorino
From: .vic.au
Registered: 2007-09-28
Posts: 6,217
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

rson451 wrote:

off topic here, but if you wanna be picky about it, you can set a single keystroke to screen windows tongue  f1-10 go to screens 0-9 for me smile

Really? Teach me? big_smile

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#15 2008-06-27 11:07:44

wuischke
Member
From: Suisse Romande
Registered: 2007-01-06
Posts: 630

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Thank you for the screenshot.

@sniffles: I accept the do-it-yourself philosophy, but I believe that it is preferrable to provide such information once in order to save many people the time to test it themselves.

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#16 2008-06-27 14:44:33

rson451
Member
From: Annapolis, MD USA
Registered: 2007-04-15
Posts: 1,233
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

fukawi2 wrote:

Really? Teach me? big_smile

http://rsontech.net/dotfiles/server/.screenrc


archlinux - please read this and this — twice — then ask questions.
--
http://rsontech.net | http://github.com/rson

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#17 2008-06-28 00:17:16

bladdo
Member
From: Blacksburg, VA
Registered: 2008-05-05
Posts: 111
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

very nice looking man, thanks a ton. they should include this by default with arch, makes thing looks even a hell of a lot nicer big_smile


bladdo / mil / Miles
userbound.com - blog and projects

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#18 2008-06-28 12:19:17

bavardage
Member
Registered: 2008-02-17
Posts: 160

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

My current /etc/issue looks like:
ta2xi
Sorry for poor image quality.
Not as fancy as the above but may appeal to some. Would probably look better on your machine if you were to edit the colour scheme - my whole computer is quite orange-ey themed.
Here it is:

^[[H^[[2J
^[[1;33m
^[[1;33m               +
^[[1;33m               A
^[[1;33m              RCH               ^[[0;33m Arch Linux \r
^[[1;33m             ARCHA              ^[[0;33m Time is \t
^[[1;33m             RCHARC             ^[[0;33m \l @ \n
^[[1;33m            ; HARCH;            ^[[0;33m
^[[1;33m           +AR.CHARC            ^[[0;33m
^[[1;33m          +HARCHARCHA           ^[[0;33m
^[[1;33m         RCHARC^[[0;33m\HARCH^[[1;33m\AR;          ^[[0;33m
^[[1;33m        CHA^[[0;33m\RCHARCHARCHA^[[1;33m+         ^[[0;33m
^[[1;33m       R^[[0;33m\CHARCH   ARCHARC        ^[[0;33m
^[[0;33m     .HARCHA;     ;RCH;`\".
^[[0;33m    .ARCHARC;     ;HARCH.
^[[0;33m    ARCHARCHA.   .RCHARCHA`
^[[0;33m   RCHARC'           'HARCHA
^[[0;33m  ;RCHA                 RCHA;
^[[0;33m  RC'                     'HA
^[[0;33m R'                         `C
^[[0;33m'                            `
^[[0m

Last edited by bavardage (2008-06-28 12:20:00)

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#19 2008-06-29 02:25:15

ras0ir
Member
From: Ankara/Turkey
Registered: 2008-06-20
Posts: 65
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

@dav7
Great work! I've started using it

@bavardage
This one is great also thanks for sharing it smile

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#20 2008-06-29 16:29:46

sujoy
Member
From: India
Registered: 2008-02-08
Posts: 94
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

dav7 and bavardage, good work guys.
i am using dav7's issue now, looks awesome. smile

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#21 2008-08-19 00:25:28

Thoht
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-02-02
Posts: 75

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Hi!

I'm messing around with /etc/issue, but can't make it display colours. I tried both this:

\e[1;31m\]archlinux\[m\]

and this:

^[[1;31m archlinux

but upon login it still prints all of it, bar the first slash.

Any ideas? I tried various terms on Google and here on the forums, like "/etc/issue", "agetty" "customize", "colour" and so on to no avail...

Thanks for any help!


Credit to KiwiesRuleXD @ DeviantArt for the avatar.

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#22 2008-08-19 18:22:23

sa
Member
From: boston ma
Registered: 2008-05-23
Posts: 127
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

thanks, this is awesome!

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#23 2008-08-19 18:42:04

Daenyth
Forum Fellow
From: Boston, MA
Registered: 2008-02-24
Posts: 1,244

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Thoht wrote:

I'm messing around with /etc/issue, but can't make it display colours. I tried both this:

I have a feeling that you're typing '^[' by hand. It's not those two characters, it's a special non-printing character. You can get it by doing ctrl+V, ctrl+[

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#24 2008-08-19 20:16:25

adamruss
Member
Registered: 2008-01-17
Posts: 143

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

i just wanted to say to people that are posting snapshots... "fbgrab" (communitiy) can take a screenshot png of the framebufferd tty.

and fot the original issue file, it looks great thanks!!

Last edited by adamruss (2008-08-19 21:22:52)

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#25 2008-08-19 20:44:27

haxit
Member
From: /home/haxit
Registered: 2008-03-04
Posts: 1,247
Website

Re: /etc/issue "2.0" - My ASCII art version with Arch logo and text

Looks great big_smile


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Vi veri universum vivus vici.

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