< zed0> can you get cp to give a progress bar like wget? Damn right you can. #!/bin/sh cp_p() { strace -q -ewrite cp -- "${1}" "${2}" 2>&1 \ | awk '{ count += $NF if (count % 10 == 0) { percent = count / total_size * 100 printf "%3d%% [", percent for (i=0;i<=percent;i++) printf "=" printf ">" for (i=percent;i<100;i++) printf " " printf "]\r" } } END { print "" }' total_size=$(stat -c '%s' "${1}")