GNU screen has no prompt
 

When I run screen, I can type commands and see their output, but I have no prompt or anything. Command history is nonexistent and backspace is displayed as ^H, almost as if the shell were not running. Is there a way I can fix this?

Have you checked the man page? Are you sure that screen is spawning a new shell when it starts?

How can I make sure it is spawning a new shell?

My screen automatically spawns a shell... sounds pretty fishy to me. Have you tried explicitly running your favorite shell (i.e. when screen starts, type "bash"). To be honest, I'm totally stumped by this one... maybe try the screen mailing list?