# How Does One Install Fortune?



## wmichaelb (Feb 20, 2011)

The package didn't install with the rest of the Gnome2 desktop. Is there a place where it can be downloaded? It doesn't seem to be on Freshports.

Thanks in advance from me and from Wanda.


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 20, 2011)

What is 'fortune'? And there's nothing 'on Freshports', as it is just a website indexing and tracking the FreeBSD ports tree (history and changes). It works with the files that are in /usr/ports, just like everyone else.


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## wblock@ (Feb 20, 2011)

You mean fortune(6)?  It's part of the base, the binary is at /usr/games/fortune.


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## ckester (Feb 20, 2011)

... and if you don't find /usr/games/fortune, run

`# sysinstall`

and choose the following selections on each successive screen:


Configure - Do post-install configuration
Distributions - Install additional distributions
games - Games (non-commercial)

You can then install from a disk or via ftp.


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 20, 2011)

From the opening post I assumed it was something Gnome-specific. Guess not?


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## jrm@ (Feb 20, 2011)

If you're looking for the FreeBSD tips on login, you can put either 


```
if ( -x /usr/games/fortune ) /usr/games/fortune freebsd-tips
```

or


```
if [ -x /usr/games/fortune ] ; then /usr/games/fortune freebsd-tips ; fi
```

in your shell start up scripts, depending on the shell you are using.


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## wblock@ (Feb 20, 2011)

As long as we're talking about it, is there a convenient way of using fortune to generate bitmaps with random fonts and colors?  Sort of like fontglide from x11/xscreensaver, only static images that could be presented in a slideshow.


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 20, 2011)

Oh no, next thing somebody will want to know how to bake Chinese cookies..


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## wblock@ (Feb 21, 2011)

It would be a graphic version of fortune.  Err, graphic in the sense of a bitmap, not in the fortune -o sense.


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## DutchDaemon (Feb 21, 2011)

Keeping my eye on the ball for a moment: wmichaelb, how are you getting on?


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## wmichaelb (Feb 23, 2011)

*Fortune Didn't Install (Solved!)*

Dutch, thanks for following up. I've been running pkgdb -F ... for three days! Even with the -fu flag, it still requires a lot of user input, and is pretty slow on my 2.4 GHz P4 test machine. 

Fortune is an original UNIX program, and is the engine behind the classic Gnome "Wanda the Fish" app. I often use the quotes to lighten up my math lectures. 

The suggestion above to invoke sysinstall and then add the "games" category worked; all is well now. I had assumed that doing a full desktop install would include all those pieces, but that's not the case and now I know how to fix it in the future.

Thanks to all!


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