LinuxQuestions.org - [SOLVED] how to change the shell prompt globally

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how to change the shell prompt globally

I want to change the bash shell prompt. So far, every post I've seen on this discusses changing the user's .bashrc or .bash_profile. That's not what I want. I want to change the prompt globally for all users.

I've modified the PS1 env. variable in /etc/profile, but that does nothing.

Where do I do this?

Changing /etc/profile isn't going to affect shells that are already running. Only newly spawned login shells will be automaticlly reading that file. Nor will setting PS1 in /etc/profile affect any users that set their own PS1 in their .bash_profile or .bashrc files.

I figured it out. PS1 is set all over the place (sometimes I think Ubuntu is going "Microsoft" on us!). In order to get a common, unified PS1 for this system, I did the following:

1. set the promt I want in /etc/profile:

Code:

 1  if [ "$PS1" ]; then

 2    if [ "$BASH" ] && [ "$BASH" != "/bin/sh" ]; then

 3      # The file bash.bashrc already sets the default PS1.

 4      # PS1='\h:\w\$ '

 5      if [ -f /etc/bash.bashrc ]; then

 6        . /etc/bash.bashrc

 7      fi

 8    fi

 9  ##  else

10      if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then

11  #      PS1='# '

12  PS1='$SHLVL \t \u@\h:\w\n# '

13      else

14  #      PS1='$ '

15  PS1='$SHLVL \t \u@\h:\w\n$ '

16      fi

17  ##  fi

18  fi

I added lines 12 and 15 (my desired prompts) and commented out 9, 11, 14 and 17.

/etc/bash.bashrc is sourced by /etc/profile (line 6), and it too wants to set PS1. I commented out the PS1 setting in this file, which is the 19th line in my version:

Code:

# set a fancy prompt (non-color, overwrite the one in /etc/profile)

# PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

Finally, $HOME/.bashrc also sets PS1. I commented out lines 59-73, except 64:

Code:

    59  #if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then

    60  #    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

    61  #else

    62  #    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

    63  #fi

    64  unset color_prompt force_color_prompt

    65

    66  # If this is an xterm set the title to user@host:dir

    67  #case "$TERM" in

    68  #xterm*|rxvt*)

    69  #    PS1="\[\e]0;${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h: \w\a\]$PS1"

    70  #    ;;

    71  #*)

    72  #    ;;

    73  #esac

I've also made this same change in /etc/skel/.bashrc so it propagates for newly added users.

Wait! There's more! gnome-terminal does not source /etc/.profile (see here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/40287...-being-sourced). To get it to do so, (in the menu bar) Edit > Profile Preferences > Command > Check: "Run command as a login shell"

Who knew that setting the shell prompt could evolve into such complexity!

You could just put the setting in /etc/bashrc, which would get sourced by non-login shells too.