How to make Xfce terminal run a command when it starts?

Question

I want the Xfce terminal to run a command when it is turned on, for example print a welcome message or some system stats. I want this message to be printed only on the Xfce terminal emulator when it starts, not on some other terminal emulators. Can I achieve this effect by modifying the file terminalrc? How?

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 30 '16 at 07:02

If you absolutely want to do this, I see two approaches:

1) Make a bash (or whatever shell you use) profile script that gets the parent PID to see if it is running under xfce4-terminal, and, if so, prints your message.

2) Something like this (note you may have to re-run it after OS upgrades, or it may even befuddle your package manager into not working properly anymore):

W="$(which xfce4-terminal)"
sudo cp "$W" "$W".orig
sudo tee "$W" <<EOF
#!/usr/bin/env bash
exec ${W}.orig -e 'sh -c "echo this is xfce4-terminal ... ; bash"'
EOF
sudo chmod a+x "$W"

That is one ugly hack. I haven't tried it but I suppose it probably works. Your first choice would probably be nicer. — Julie Pelletier, Dec 30 '16 at 07:14

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 31 '16 at 03:22

0

I found the solution. I added this code to the .bashrc file.

if [ $COLORTERM == "xfce4-terminal" ]
then
   echo "Welcome to the Xfce4 Terminal"
fi

answered Dec 31 '16 at 03:22

Galaxy

505

1

Why you used $COLORTERM? I think that could be sufficient write if [ "xfce4-terminal" ] – Riccardo Volpe Sep 13 '17 at 09:05

How to make Xfce terminal run a command when it starts?

2 Answers2