I replaced my corrupted /etc/profiles and now when I login, the ~ that used to be there that indicated home directory is missing.

I can put in the \w option to show current working directory & it then shows up, but I don't want all that text for working directory. I just want it back like it was before with just computer name:~$ _.

Ideas?

JesseMor

From memory, the HOME variable is populated by the login process based on the value in your /etc/passwd entry. Was your passwd file corrupted as well?

In your /etc/profile find where you stated your default prompt
and change it to:

PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '

Is the slackware default and prolly what you are looking todo

user@host:~$

PS1='\u@\h:\w\$ '
No, that puts up user@host:/home~$ _ or bill@bigboy:/financial$ _. I don't want the "home" or "financial" part i.e., the part called up by \w. But when I leave out the \w I lose the ~ when I log in to home directory.

Just so I'm using the same terms you are, a \w puts in the working directory, a \W puts the basename of the working directory. The ~ you want to display is used by bash as shorthand for your home directory.

Sorry, to harp on this, but can you check that $HOME is set to /home/bill and $SHELL is set to /bin/bash?

Yes, I agree with your statements about \W and \w and have changed and observed these. Yes, $HOME is set to /home/bill and $SHELL is /bin/bash.

But, the only way I can get the ~ to show when in the users home directory (as specified in passwd) is to use either \W or \w and what I was trying to do was to get the shorthand indicator ~ to show without the directory name(s) showing, as they do when I use \W or\w. I think I remember it being this way before, but we all know about memories, so maybe it was never as I think I remember and maybe what I want isn't possible to set up.

Thanks for sticking with me on this,
Jesse

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get it to behave that way here Sorry I wasn't able to help.