DD Progress

Run dd in the background and note the pid

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null&
[1] 3345

or even better assign pid to a variable

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null& pid=$!

and start a kill -USR1 loop

while [ 1 ]
do 
  kill -USR1 $pid # replace $pid with pid number if you did not assign it to a variable
  sleep 2
  clear
done