MAKE YOUR COMPUTER GREET YOU ON BOOTING UP!!

                  Ever thought of making your computer greet you as soon as you boot up. A woman voice saying to you , '' Welcome back, [your name]! Hope you are okay!!" . It gives you a Tony Stark feeling of genius. So, lets get to it.

Prerequisites:

1. Linux operating system

2.Basic knowledge of shell and terminal

3.Espeak:You can download it by typing "sudo apt-get install espeak" in the        

                terminal.

Step 1: Writing the bash file

Open text editor of your preference and write a  bash script. This script would be the base on which we will add some features.

#!/bin/sh
sleep 60
espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Welcome Back Home [your name]" #using espeak to make the computer greet   
espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Hope you did not miss me much"   #the greeting you want to give

Step 2:Adding features to the bash script 

1.We will make our computer do a ping test on booting up. This way we would come to know if there is Internet connection. Add the below lines on the script.

espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Checking Network Connectivity"
ping -q -c5 google.com > /dev/null  #store the ping result in /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ] #check the ping result against custom values of ping  and output the appropriate result
then
   espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Ping Test Successful"
   espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Computer connected to network"

else
   espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Ping Test Failed"
   espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Computer not connected"
fi

2. We will add another feature to the script. We will make an attendance system which will store the date and time every time we boot up the computer.Add the below lines on the script.

date=$(date) echo$date >>attendance.txt 

The complete code with everything is given below:


#!/bin/sh
sleep 60
espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Welcome Back Home Adish"

espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Hope you did not miss me much"
espeak -v en-us+f3 -s160  "Checking Network Connectivity"
ping -q -c5 google.com > /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 0 ] then    espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Ping Test Successful"    espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Computer connected to network" else    espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Ping Test Failed"    espeak -v en-us+f3 -s180  "Computer not connected" fi date=$(date)
echo $date >>attendance.txt

Step 3:Testing the script

Open the terminal and  make the script executable by typing "sudo chmod +x [script name]". You should hear your computer speak. Open the attendance.txt by typing "nano attendance.txt". You would see date and time of your boot up similar to the image below:

If everything goes accordingly, your script is ready.

Step 4: Make the script execute on starting the computer

To make the script run on startup you have to follow the below steps:

1.Copy the script to init.d by executing the command "sudo cp [name of script] /etc/init.d/" .

2.Edit the crontab. Run the following command in terminal: "sudo crontab -e". You would be welcomed by the window below.

3.Add the following lines: @reboot /etc/init.d/welcome.sh and save it by pressing Ctrl + X , Y and enter.

 

  

Step 5:Reboot computer

You should hear your computer greeting to you.

Follow the entire project and see the whole source code at github. Follow the blog for more awesome Linux projects.