--- title: The 'fortune' Command in Linux (Hidden Terminal Fun!) description: The fortune command displays random jokes and quotes in the Linux terminal. While purely for entertainment, it can be installed via the fortune-mod package and... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-fortune-command-in-linux-hidden-terminal-fun--gjjh2ohrw twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The 'fortune' Command in Linux (Hidden Terminal Fun!) | daily.dev og:description: The fortune command displays random jokes and quotes in the Linux terminal. While purely for entertainment, it can be installed via the fortune-mod package and... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-fortune-command-in-linux-hidden-terminal-fun--gjjh2ohrw og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/gjJH2ohrW.png og:image:alt: The 'fortune' Command in Linux (Hidden Terminal Fun!) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The 'fortune' Command in Linux (Hidden Terminal Fun!) **[Learn Linux TV](https://daily.dev/sources/learnlinuxtv)** · 9 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary The fortune command displays random jokes and quotes in the Linux terminal. While purely for entertainment, it can be installed via the fortune-mod package and customized with options for short/long fortunes and different categories like literature or Star Trek. It can be combined with cowsay to display fortunes in ASCII art format and integrated into login messages for a personalized server greeting. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The completely useless fortune command on Linux](https://daily.dev/posts/the-completely-useless-fortune-command-on-linux-8z5k8jvdk) · All Things Open · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Ars Asks: Share your shell and show us your tricked-out terminals\!](https://daily.dev/posts/ars-asks-share-your-shell-and-show-us-your-tricked-out-terminals--4dnzkuy3f) · Ars Technica · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Foot: The Wayland Terminal Most Linux Users Don’t Know About](https://daily.dev/posts/foot-the-wayland-terminal-most-linux-users-don-t-know-about-isp3tlu95) · It's Foss · 7 upvotes · 1 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#cli](https://daily.dev/tags/cli), [#fedora](https://daily.dev/tags/fedora) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-fortune-command-in-linux-hidden-terminal-fun--gjjh2ohrw) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The 'fortune' Command in Linux (Hidden Terminal Fun!)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-fortune-command-in-linux-hidden-terminal-fun--gjjh2ohrw","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-fortune-command-in-linux-hidden-terminal-fun--gjjh2ohrw"},"datePublished":"2026-02-16T16:02:05.706Z","dateModified":"2026-02-16T16:02:24.167Z","description":"The fortune command displays random jokes and quotes in the Linux terminal. 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