Sat Sep 26 14:14:00 EEST 2009

Make your Debian Linux and FreeBSD terminal / console display daily verse from KJV Bible

Since I am a Christian and I want to daily be in touch with the Holy Scriptures and I am most
of the time spending on my Linux system. I have came to the conclusion that it's beneficial to
have a daily bible displaying everytime after I login in console or terminal in X.
Therefore I thought it might be helpful to somebody out there who would wish to have the same
on his Linux / FreeBSD machine.
Here is how to set bible quote to appear everytime after login in Debian Linux:
First install the verse program through:
# apt-get install verse
Next if you want to make the verse display global for the system put
if [ -f /usr/bin/verse ]; then
echo
/usr/bin/verse
fi
in /etc/bash.bashrc
On the other hand if you'd like to make it local for your account or a set number of accounts on your system append
if [ -f /usr/bin/verse ]; then
echo
/usr/bin/verse
fi

to your ~/.bashrc as well as to the home directories of the users you'd like to display a bible verse.
If you decide to do that be aware that your login via sftp won't work anymore.
Every time you attempt to login you'll experience the error message:
"Received message too long". However that ain't a real problem for me
since I use my system as a desktop and don't sftp or ssh remotely to it or if I
do it's really often in that cases to enable my sftp logins again I temporary
comment the above code from all the files where I have it.
On FreeBSD the same is achieved a bit differently.
Here is how to install it in FreeBSD:
First you need to install it as a fortune module, because in FreeBSD bible quotes
are only available via the good old fortune program:
cd /usr/ports/misc/fortune-mod-bible;
make install clean

Next open:
the /etc/profile file and insert in the end of it:

echo
/usr/games/fortune /usr/local/share/games/fortune/bible
After your next login your FreeBSD should be quoting a bible
quotation after each and every login. What is different with
Debian's verse program is that verse keeps displaying one exact
quote of the bible during every login during the whole day,
where in FreeBSD the fortune-mod-bible does visualize a different
bible quote during every next login.