when I use the command su , it will get to the shell , but the root sign is as below

root@user1-desktop:~#

can advise if I want to change the sign to # as below , what can I do ? thanks

#

When you are changing to the route user are you using the following command: su - or su

su - changing your user to root but also takes you to the root home directory and loads all root user system paths

you can move to the home directory of any user by using the following command: cd ~

Hope this info helps

Misunderstood the question... Sorry about that.

I don't think that there is any way to change the symbol in the terminal prompt. I think that the default prompt is your only option. However, you might want to contact the maker of distribution, if anyone knows, they do.

Hi,

in order to change the (bash) shell prompt, in Debian you can edit /etc/bash.bashrc and modify the PS1 variable like this:

In general, this should also work:

Otherwise, modifying PS1 in /etc/profile will affect other shells as well, but at least in Debian the value is taken from /etc/bash.bashrc anyway.

Both files will change the prompt system-wide, but will be overridden if PS1 is set differently in /home/<user>/.bashrc.

EDIT: For user-specific settings .bashrc is the file you want to edit. This is valid for /root/.bashrc as well, which AFAIK is the best way to go if you wish to affect the root prompt and nothing else.

Kind regards,

Philip

Each shell may have it's own way of changing the prompt. If you're using bash, and just want the hash alone as your prompt:
To make it persistent, you will have to edit a configuration file, .bash_profile for bash.

Regarding ~/.bash_profile in Debian, I'm slightly confused. It used to be the configuration file for login shells, and it still is according to the bash man page:

However, in Debian Squeeze (bash 4.1) and Wheezy (bash 4.2) I don't see any ~/.bash_profile, so I guess login shells are handled by /etc/profile by default. Besides, /etc/profile reads /etc/bash.bashrc (system-wide configuration for non-login shells) if it exists. With this setup, as far as I can see, ~/.bashrc affects login shells as well, unless ~/.bash_profile is available.

This is not valid for Slackware (and probably for many other distributions) where ~/.bashrc and ~/.bash_profile have their original behavior, while /etc/profile is for system-wide configuration affecting login shells. Moreover, /etc/bash.bashrc is not there and not even mentioned in the man page (while it is in Debian's version), so I guess this file is a Debian "fix"?

Kind regards,

Philip

The files under /etc are read first, then the user's personal files, which can override the global settings.
You may have to create the local/personal bash files.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yes, each distribution has its own idiosyncrasies. The bottom line is that a the lack of a file file, be it system wide or per-user, is silently ignored. At one time a per user startup file was probably included in /etc/skel so that each user had one upon creation, and it was later deemed unnecessary.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you, goumba and chrism01, for clarifying this point.

Yes, I remember this was the case with Debian Sarge (3.1) for example, but I don't know exactly when the thing changed.

Best wishes,
Philip

More information about changing the prompt can be found in the Bash Prompt HOWTO.

1 members found this post helpful.