# cowsay mit Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, zypper, scoop installieren

Prüfe Installationswege, Executables, Metadaten und Sicherheitshinweise für cowsay in AI-Agent-Workflows.

## Installation

```sh
sudo av install brew:cowsay
```

Weitere Installationsbefehle:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install cowsay
```

  Evidenz: local Homebrew formula metadata

- MacPorts (94%):

```sh
sudo port install cowsay
```

  Evidenz: MacPorts ports tree: textproc/cowsay/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1

### Linux

- apk (92%):

```sh
sudo apk add cowsay
```

  Evidenz: Alpine Linux edge package indexes: cowsay from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz

- Debian apt (92%):

```sh
sudo apt install cowsay
```

  Evidenz: Debian stable package indexes: cowsay from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz

- dnf (92%):

```sh
sudo dnf install cowsay
```

  Evidenz: Fedora Rawhide package metadata: cowsay from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/07190dc5ae9f35ae73866675fed6d95fe6e8d9fe22c9d7cdf85862cb2ed24a4c-primary.xml.zst

- Nix (92%):

```sh
nix profile install nixpkgs#cowsay
```

  Evidenz: nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/co/cowsay/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1

- pacman (92%):

```sh
sudo pacman -S cowsay
```

  Evidenz: Arch Linux sync databases: cowsay from https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64/extra.db.tar.gz

- zypper (92%):

```sh
sudo zypper install cowsay
```

  Evidenz: openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: cowsay from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/50b07339cb64c8ed4091bdbabddadc1ff5737b090e478818a195b40d8a3292861a879139b4a3987c31109699fde9fbf4a716367ddf4eef77da75f96e3193d6ed-primary.xml.zst

### Windows

- Scoop (92%):

```sh
scoop install main/cowsay
```

  Evidenz: Scoop official bucket manifest trees: bucket/cowsay.json from https://api.github.com/repos/ScoopInstaller/Main/git/trees/master?recursive=1

## Paketfakten

- **Paketschlüssel:** brew:cowsay
- **Paketmanager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 3.8.4
- **Quellzusammenfassung:** Apjanke's fork of the classic cowsay project
- **Homepage:** <https://cowsay.diamonds>
- **Repository:** <https://github.com/cowsay-org/cowsay>
- **Generiert:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- cowsay (Alias)
- cowthink (Alias)

## Installationsverhalten

- Bottle: nicht verfügbar

## Version und Aktualität

- Seite generiert: 2026-08-03
- Manager-Version: 3.8.4
## Projektgeschichte und Nutzung

Cowsay is a Perl terminal novelty program that prints a message in a speech balloon next to an ASCII cow. Its official maintained fork describes it as a small, deliberately silly Unix-style program in the spirit of figlet.

### Projektgeschichte

The current cowsay-org project preserves Tony Monroe's original Cowsay. The project README says Monroe first released Cowsay in 1999, after using it privately for some time. Early versions evolved from one cow and a fixed message template into arbitrary messages, multiple cowfiles, figlet support, and a Perl 5 rewrite.

In 2016, Monroe published a final 3.04 version on GitHub and indicated that he was no longer interested in maintaining it. Andrew Janke later created the cowsay-org fork to provide maintenance, hosting, deployment support, random cow selection, and pluggable third-party cow collections.

### Adoptionsgeschichte

Cowsay became a familiar package-manager fixture because it is tiny, scriptable, harmless, and visually distinctive. The Homebrew formula data in this batch lists it across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, MacPorts, Nix, Scoop, and openSUSE-style packaging, reflecting its broad life as a demonstration, shell-customization, and terminal-joke package.

### Wie es verwendet wird

Typical use is as a command-line filter or generator: users run cowsay or cowthink with a message, often in login banners, demos, shell pipelines, CI jokes, or examples that need recognizable terminal output without real domain complexity.

### Warum Paket-Nerds sich dafür interessieren

For package maintainers, Cowsay is a classic low-risk novelty package: it exercises Perl script installation, data-file handling for cowfiles, manpage-style documentation, and cross-platform packaging while remaining easy to test by invoking a single executable.

### Zeitleiste

- 1999: Tony Monroe first released Cowsay publicly.
- 2016: Monroe published a final 3.04 version on GitHub for others to use.
- 2016 onward: Andrew Janke's cowsay-org fork provided ongoing maintenance and modern hosting.

### Related projects

- The README explicitly compares Cowsay's spirit to figlet, and points to third-party cowfile collections plus cowsay-org's cows-offensive collection for historical cowfiles kept outside the main distribution.

### Quellen

- <https://github.com/cowsay-org/cowsay#readme>


## Sicherheitshinweise

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger-Risiko:** grün / niedrig
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals

## Andere Paketmanager-Einträge

- Debian apt - cowsay - 3.03+dfsg2-8: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: cowsay from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | configurable talking cow | https://web.archive.org/web/20120527202447/http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml
- Debian apt - cowsay-off - 3.03+dfsg2-8: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: cowsay-off from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | configurable talking cow (offensive cows) | https://web.archive.org/web/20120527202447/http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml
- Nix - cowsay: normalized package name match | nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/co/cowsay/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1
- Ubuntu apt - cowsay - 3.03+dfsg2-8: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: cowsay from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | configurable talking cow | https://web.archive.org/web/20120527202447/http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml
- Ubuntu apt - cowsay-off - 3.03+dfsg2-8: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: cowsay-off from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | configurable talking cow (offensive cows) | https://web.archive.org/web/20120527202447/http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml
- apk - cowsay - 3.04-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: cowsay from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Configurable talking cow (and a few other creatures) | https://github.com/tnalpgge/rank-amateur-cowsay
- apk - cowsay-doc - 3.04-r2: normalized package name match | Alpine Linux edge package indexes: cowsay-doc from https://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/testing/x86_64/APKINDEX.tar.gz | Configurable talking cow (and a few other creatures) (documentation) | https://github.com/tnalpgge/rank-amateur-cowsay
- dnf - cowsay - 3.8.4-6.fc45: normalized package name match | Fedora Rawhide package metadata: cowsay from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/07190dc5ae9f35ae73866675fed6d95fe6e8d9fe22c9d7cdf85862cb2ed24a4c-primary.xml.zst | Configurable speaking/thinking cow | https://github.com/cowsay-org/cowsay
- pacman - cowsay - 3.8.4-1: normalized package name match | Arch Linux sync databases: cowsay from https://geo.mirror.pkgbuild.com/extra/os/x86_64/extra.db.tar.gz | Configurable talking cow (and a bit more) | https://cowsay.diamonds
- zypper - cowsay - 3.8.4-1.5: normalized package name match | openSUSE Tumbleweed package metadata: cowsay from https://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/repo/oss/repodata/50b07339cb64c8ed4091bdbabddadc1ff5737b090e478818a195b40d8a3292861a879139b4a3987c31109699fde9fbf4a716367ddf4eef77da75f96e3193d6ed-primary.xml.zst | Configurable talking cow (and some other creatures) | https://cowsay.diamonds/
- MacPorts - cowsay: normalized package name match | MacPorts ports tree: textproc/cowsay/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1
- Scoop - main/cowsay: normalized package name match | Scoop official bucket manifest trees: bucket/cowsay.json from https://api.github.com/repos/ScoopInstaller/Main/git/trees/master?recursive=1


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/cowsay.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/cowsay.yml)


## Quellen

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- external package-manager database matches
- cross-ecosystem install command graph