🖥️ Custom Welcome Message for Linux & macOS

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Easily add a beautiful, dynamic welcome message to your Linux or macOS shell—complete with system stats, public IP, disk usage, weather, and multi-language support.

🚀 Features

💬 Multi-language support (auto-detected via LANG)
📦 Fastfetch system overview at login
🌐 Weather, public IP, disk usage report
💾 System metrics dashboard (memory, CPU usage)
⚡ Performance optimized with smart caching
🎨 Customizable via configuration file
🔒 Security focused with timeouts and error handling
🐚 Bash & ZSH support
📦 Multi-distro support (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, RHEL)
🍓 Improved Raspberry Pi detection and throttling status
✅ Idempotent installer — safe to run repeatedly
🧪 Test mode and uninstall options

⚙️ Installation

Run this command to install:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash

✅ You can re-run this any time — it will only update the script if needed.

Installation Options

# Test mode - see what would be installed without making changes
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash -s -- --test

# Skip dependency installation (if you already have curl and fastfetch)
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash -s -- --no-deps

# Uninstall welcome message
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash -s -- --uninstall

# Show help
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash -s -- --help

🎨 Configuration

A default config file is created automatically at ~/.config/welcome.sh/config on first run. To change a setting, remove the # at the start of the line and set your value:

nano ~/.config/welcome.sh/config

Available Options

# Display toggles
SHOW_FASTFETCH=true          # Show fastfetch system info
SHOW_WEATHER=true            # Show weather from wttr.in
SHOW_PUBLIC_IP=true          # Show your public IP address
SHOW_PRIVATE_IP=false        # Show your private/local IP address
SHOW_UPTIME=true             # Show uptime and load average
SHOW_DISK_USAGE=true         # Show disk usage for all mounted volumes
SHOW_MEMORY=true             # Show memory usage
SHOW_CPU_TEMP=true           # Show CPU temperature (not available on macOS)
SHOW_TOP_CPU=true            # Show top CPU process
SHOW_ASCII_ART=false         # Show ASCII art banner
QUIET_MODE=false             # Minimal output for faster loading

# Customization
WEATHER_LOCATION=""          # Set your city (e.g., "New+York", "London")
WEATHER_FORMAT="3"           # wttr.in format (see https://wttr.in/:help)
GREETING=""                  # Custom greeting (overrides language default)
CACHE_TIMEOUT=3600           # Cache duration in seconds (default: 1 hour)
REQUEST_TIMEOUT=3            # Timeout for external API calls (seconds)

Example configuration file: config.example

Quick Customization Examples

Enable ASCII art banner:

echo "SHOW_ASCII_ART=true" >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config

Change weather location:

echo "WEATHER_LOCATION=\"Tokyo\"" >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config

Speed up loading (disable slow features):

cat >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config << EOF
SHOW_WEATHER=false
SHOW_PUBLIC_IP=false
QUIET_MODE=true
EOF

Clear cache (useful after config changes):

~/welcome.sh --clear-cache

🗣️ Language Support

The installer detects your system language using LANG and fetches a matching welcome.sh.template.{lang}. Currently available: en, es, nl, fr, de. If no matching template is found, the script will display all available templates and automatically use English.

You can temporarily force a language without changing your system locale permanently:

LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8 LANGUAGE=fr \
bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh)

🚀 Performance Optimizations

Smart Caching: Public IP and weather data are cached for 1 hour by default
Timeouts: External API calls timeout after 3 seconds to prevent hanging
Quiet Mode: Disable resource-intensive features for faster loading
Conditional Checks: System metrics only run when needed

Cache files are stored in: ~/.cache/welcome.sh/

🧪 Safe, Smart, and Idempotent

Uses content comparison (not hashes) to determine updates
Adds hook to .bashrc and .zshrc if needed
Will not duplicate or overwrite if already installed
Test mode available to preview changes
Clean uninstall option removes all files and hooks

🐧 Distribution Support

Supported Platforms

Linux: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, Arch Linux, Manjaro, openSUSE, SUSE Linux, Raspberry Pi OS
macOS: Fully compatible with Bash and Zsh (Homebrew installation recommended)

Supported Package Managers (Linux)

APT (Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS)
DNF (Fedora, RHEL 8+)
YUM (CentOS, RHEL 7)
Pacman (Arch Linux, Manjaro)
Zypper (openSUSE, SUSE Linux)

macOS Installation

On macOS, you’ll need Homebrew to install dependencies. If you don’t have Homebrew installed yet:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Then install the required dependencies:

brew install curl fastfetch

Finally, run the installer:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash

Note: The installer will automatically detect macOS and skip Linux-specific package managers. Just ensure curl and fastfetch are installed via Homebrew first.

Raspberry Pi

Improved detection using multiple methods:

/proc/device-tree/model check
/boot/config.txt presence
Automatic libraspberrypi-bin installation
Throttling status monitoring

📦 Dependencies

These are installed automatically (unless --no-deps is used):

bash, curl
fastfetch (via distribution package manager or PPA)
libraspberrypi-bin (only on Raspberry Pi)

Ubuntu 22.04+ users benefit from a Fastfetch PPA for latest builds.

� System Metrics Dashboard

Each metric has its own toggle:

Disk Usage (SHOW_DISK_USAGE): Lists all mounted volumes (filters out macOS system volumes)
Memory Usage (SHOW_MEMORY): Shows used/total memory with percentage (uses vm_stat/sysctl on macOS, free on Linux)
Top CPU Process (SHOW_TOP_CPU): Displays the most CPU-intensive process (hidden in quiet mode)
CPU Temperature (SHOW_CPU_TEMP): Multi-method temperature detection (Linux only, not available on macOS)

Always shown (no toggle):

Package Updates: Works across multiple package managers
Reboot Status: Warning if system reboot is required
Throttling Status: Raspberry Pi throttling detection

�📂 Directory Layout

.
├── install_welcome.sh
├── config.example
└── templates/
    ├── welcome.sh.template.en
    ├── welcome.sh.template.es
    ├── welcome.sh.template.nl
    ├── welcome.sh.template.fr
    └── welcome.sh.template.de

Want to contribute a translation? Add a new welcome.sh.template.xx file!

🧠 Advanced Usage

Upgrading

To upgrade to the latest version, simply re-run the installer:

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash

This will update ~/welcome.sh to the latest version while preserving your existing configuration. The installer will also add any new config options and remove deprecated ones from ~/.config/welcome.sh/config.

Testing Configuration Changes

After editing your config file, test it immediately:

~/welcome.sh

To force fresh data (bypass cache):

~/welcome.sh --clear-cache && ~/welcome.sh

Temporary Disable

Comment out the hook in your shell rc file:

# ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
# ~/welcome.sh

Custom Installation

Download and modify the template locally:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/templates/welcome.sh.template.en
# Edit welcome.sh.template.en as desired
mv welcome.sh.template.en ~/welcome.sh
chmod +x ~/welcome.sh

Docker/VM Testing

To test in a clean shell environment, use Docker or a VM:

docker run -it ubuntu:22.04 bash -c "curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MichalAFerber/welcome-message/main/install_welcome.sh | bash && bash"

🤝 Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! Especially for:

🌍 Translations (templates/welcome.sh.template.xx)
💡 Feature ideas and enhancements
🐞 Bug fixes and improvements
📚 Documentation improvements
🎨 ASCII art banners and visual enhancements

Adding a New Language

Copy an existing template: cp templates/welcome.sh.template.en templates/welcome.sh.template.xx
Translate all user-facing strings
Test the template: bash templates/welcome.sh.template.xx
Submit a pull request

🆘 Troubleshooting

Welcome message doesn’t show

Check if the hook exists: grep welcome.sh ~/.bashrc ~/.zshrc
Test manually: ~/welcome.sh
Check for errors: bash -x ~/welcome.sh

Slow loading

Enable caching (default is enabled)
Disable weather: echo "SHOW_WEATHER=false" >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config
Disable public IP: echo "SHOW_PUBLIC_IP=false" >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config
Enable quiet mode: echo "QUIET_MODE=true" >> ~/.config/welcome.sh/config

Temperature not showing

Install lm-sensors: sudo apt install lm-sensors (Ubuntu/Debian)
Run sensors detection: sudo sensors-detect

Fastfetch not found

Manually install: sudo apt install fastfetch or check your distro’s package manager
On older Ubuntu: The installer will try to add the PPA automatically

Apt signature verification warnings

You may see warnings like W: An error occurred during signature verification during installation on systems with third-party repositories (e.g., NodeSource for Node.js). These warnings are:

Not caused by the welcome-message installer
Typically from deprecated SHA1 signatures in third-party repos
Safe to ignore — they don’t affect the welcome-message installation
The installer handles these gracefully and will continue normally

These are system-level warnings from your package manager when updating repository metadata, not from this project.

📄 License

MIT License

🙏 Credits

Inspired by fastfetch
Weather via wttr.in

For more info, read the full blog guide: Custom Linux Welcome Message

Enjoy your new login experience. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot ready. 🫡