Changing loging shell and/or terminal prompt

[Moltke]

Hi everyone! Hope you're all having a nice life!

Today I'd like to share with you some basics on how to change the login shell and/or terminal prompt. It's a completely and entirely safe procedure which will make no harm to your system, because that's how smart Linux is However, if it makes you feel better/safer, you can make a backup of your .bashrc file located in your home folder 

Code:

$ cp ~.bashrc .bashrc.bak

but it's really not neccesary. Like I said, Linux's smart enough not to let you screw things up  ;D

In order to change your login shell simply type in your terminal:

Code:

$ chsh -l

If the command above doesn't work you may use:

Code:

$ cat /etc/shells

One or the other  will list all installed/available shells in your system, to change the current shell for one of those available type:

Code:

$ chsh -s desired shell's name

for example

Code:

chsh -s /bin/zsh

You'll be asked to type your password, do so then logout/login back, open a terminal and type:

Code:

echo $SHELL

your new shell's name should be displayed. In our example it'd show:

Code:

$ /bin/zsh

Changing the terminal prompt is quite easy using the command

Code:

$ PS1=ARGS

  for example, this is how my terminal prompt is configured:

Code:

$ PS1='\[\e[1;36m\][\t \u \[\e[0m\]\W \$]'

where; \e= An ASCII escape character (033), 1;36m\= bold font and cyan color, \t= current time, \u= current logged user, \W= current working directory, \$= current prompt symbol.
resulting in this:





However, this is only temporary and it will be back to defaults in your next login, if you want to make it permanent edit your .bashrc file to make it so:

Code:

$ nano .bashrc #change nano for your preferred editor, i.e; vi

and add something like this: export PS1='\[\e[1;36m\][\t \u \[\e[0m\]\W \$] '


Well, that's it. This is the basics for changing the login shell and/or terminal prompt. Here's a couple of links to some very instructional sites/articles on these topics
https://bash.cyberciti.biz/guide/Changing_bash_prompt
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Com...ive_shells

Hope you find this helpful!

[thomasd]

I've started using Linux Lite and the "pretty" bash prompt is driving me crazy because I cannot change it.

The instructions in this post don't work, no mater what I do, PS1 stays set.

Code:

 thomasd  ~  PS1="Foo : "
 thomasd  ~  echo $PS1
\[\] thomasd \[\] \[\]~ \[\] \[\]
 thomasd  ~  

doing export has the same effect:

Code:

 thomasd  ~  export PS1="Foo : "
 thomasd  ~  echo $PS1
\[\] thomasd \[\] \[\]~ \[\] \[\]
 thomasd  ~  

[Valtam]

Paste your .bashrc please.