My BASH profile

These are notes on how I like to have my command prompt set up. I'm a BASH user so I will be updating the .profile and the .bashrc files. Both files are located in the users home directory.


This what my prompt looks like. It is a two line prompt, I find that it helps break up the commands from the output. The second line also gives more room for long commands and helps prevent the line from wrapping over top of the prompt.

earth:~

man@earth
< 

The basic bash prompt don't look all the great, as seen below. To get it look like the example above run the command below.

bash

bash$

export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]\n<\[\e[0m\] "

Below I have posted my .profile file.

earth:~

man@earth
< more .profile

PATH=/usr/xpg4/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/etc:/usr/X11/bin:/sbin:/usr/openv/netbackup:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/goodies:/usr/openv/volmgr/bin:/usr/sfw/bin/:$HOME

MANPATH=/usr/share/man:/usr/dt/man:/usr/openwin/share/man:/usr/X11/man:/usr/man:/usr/sfw/man:/usr/local/man:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi
TMOUT=0
TIMEOUT=0

#alias xterm="xterm -sl 1000 &"
#export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]>\[\e[0m\] "
export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]\n<\[\e[0m\] "

The PATH statement is used to store the paths of the commands you want to use. This way you don't need to provide the full path for each command you want to run. The MANPATH statement is basically the same thing, but used to help you access the man pages.

Bash Shortcut keys

I found this little reference chart on the short cut keys in BASH. These short cut keys allow for command line editing. I for example use Ctrl + A all the time to edit the line.

Ctrl + A	Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + E	Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + L	Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl + U	Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + H	Same as backspace
Ctrl + R	Let’s you search through previously used commands
Ctrl + C	Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl + D	Exit the current shell
Ctrl + Z	Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl + W	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + K	Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl + X	Then Backspace clear the line before the cursor
Ctrl + T	Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Esc + L	Changes to upper case
Esc + U	Changes to lower case
Esc + T	Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt + F	Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt + B	Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Tab	Auto-complete files and folder names

Referance:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/
I found this chart at the link above.