Changing prompt and echo statement colours?

[Gene Heskett]

On Tuesday 15 June 2004 23:07, T. 'Nifty New Hat' Mitchell wrote:

New hat eh?  I found me one at a truck stop in Iowa while on a trip 
west this past week, says "I'm retired" in big bold letters on line 1
and "(this is a dressed up as I get)" on line 2.  Obviously I had to 
have it. :-)

>On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 03:07:00PM +0200, Alexander Dalloz wrote:
>> Am Mo, den 14.06.2004 schrieb Chadley Wilson um 14:13:
>> > I would like to have a message displayed when users open the
>> > terminal. This I can do! But.
>
>....
>
>> http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO.html
>
>Did this URL move/break?  Anyhow since it looks broken at this
> moment.
>
>Two quick reminders.
>
>In the .bash-* files remember to verify that this is an interactive
>tty (pseudo terminal session).  Many scripts, cronjobs, remote user,
>ssh user stuff will BREAK if bash is noisy when it should be quiet.

Stuff like X!  I spent a week trying to figure that one out as it was 
several days after I changed the prompt before I had to restart X, 
and all I could get was the black screen with a working X shaped 
mouse pointer.  No errors, none, nada, were being logged. 

>Also test the $TERM environment variable and verify
>that this is a terminal that supports the magic you want.
>Have a default that makes sense... there are more than 1300
>terminals described in the termcap data base you will not get
>them all so focus on the one or two you care about.
>
>Since this is an international list I should add that language
>and character sets can be important.  If things look broken
>and you get stuck language and character variables too.
>
>Take /etc/bashrc as a starting place.  Note that two things are
>checked... Interactive and $TERM=xterm.  If users are at the
>end of a wyse50, vt100 or some other terminal/ emulation recheck
>this stuff.
>
>    ================ snip =======================
>    # are we an interactive shell?
>    if [ "$PS1" ]; then
>	case $TERM in
>	    xterm*)
>		    if [ -e /etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm ]; then
>			    PROMPT_COMMAND=/etc/sysconfig/bash-prompt-xterm
>		    else
>		    PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne
> "\033]0;${USER}@${HOSTNAME%%.*}:${PWD/#$HOME/~}\007"' fi
>    ================ snip =======================
>
>Other shells (ksh, csh, tcsh) test for an interactive session
>differently.  Note that csh and tcsh may want $term not $TERM.  The
>escape sequences are specific to the terminal program, RTFM.
>
>Note the subtle change from $ to # as a user switches from
>a normal user to root (UID=0).  Keep this small change intact.
>
>
>--
>	T o m  M i t c h e l l
>	/dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty.  Soap, ballot, 
jury, and ammo.
 Please use in that order, starting now.  -Ed Howdershelt, Author
Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004, 
Maurice E. Heskett,
all rights
reserved.