I think you're after the "prompt."
If that is the case, then an environment variable needs to be changed/modified/updated. The actual name of the environment variable depends on the shell you use. For bash, it's
PS1. For tcsh, I believe it's
prompt. I'm not sure what other shells use (such as ksh, zsh, etc). Bash is popular, so I'll assume you have that one.
You can experiment with new prompts directly at the command line. For example:
Code:
export PS1='\u@\h:\w\$'
Executing that command (in the bash shell) will make the prompt be: <user name>@<hostname>:<working directory>($|#)
THe '$' or '#' at the end of the prompt indicates whether the user is a regular user or root; only root sees the '#' at the end.
The prompt may look like this after the change:
There are many different codes you can embed in the prompt with different information. Each shell is different in how you specify what information to display, and what information is available to display. You'll need to pull up the man page for your shell and read up on it. If you're using bash, it's located under the section titled "PROMPTING."
EDIT:
Forgot to mention, to make the change permanent, the export line above either needs to be put in /etc/profile or included in the user's ${HOME}/.bash_profile.