[1470] in athena10
Re: bashrc should set PS1 or cshrc should not set prompt
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Tue Mar 10 12:26:07 2009
Cc: debathena@mit.edu
Message-Id: <F1128B74-3EC8-4B89-8BEE-7759C4A01034@mit.edu>
From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
To: Tim Abbott <tabbott@mit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.1.10.0903091514350.26041@vinegar-pot.mit.edu>
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Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:25:08 -0400
On Mar 10, 2009, at 10:59 AM, Tim Abbott wrote:
>> b) Unset $prompt in cshrc. The current default prompt on tcsh
>> seems to be
>> "%U%m%u:%B%~%b%#" (the hostname underlined, a colon, pwd in bold,
>> and ">"
>> unless it's a root shell).
>>
>> I prefer (a).
>
> If we're going to go this route, I think (b) is the better choice
> (and we
> should do it on Athena 9 as well at the same time). Prompt appearance
> depending on shell is much less confusing than depending on something
> obscure like when their account was created.
Actually, I was kind of thinking we shouldn't do it in Athena 9. I
agree that prompt appearance depending on shell is less confusing, but
the downside is that the vast majority of users do not know or care
what shell they're running. I think "Your prompt changed because
you're using a newfangled Debathena machine" is a bit easier to sell.
Also, the helpdesk has pointed out to that there is tremendous value
in being able to say "the athena prompt", and that it serves two
purposes: First, it tells people where to type things. It's short,
and it's clearly waiting for you to do something. In contrast, the
default OS X Terminal prompt confuses many people on the phone,
because it's long (huge-long-hostname:~ username$) and the reaction
of many people is "I don't know where to type things". The second
purpose it serves is communicating to people that "this is something
at which you can type athena commands." I know the distinction
between "Athena" and "not Athena" is blurred with Debathena, but
still. I'm not sure what the best way to address this problem is. A
couple of solutions come to mind:
- printing "Welcome to Debathena" in bashrc for interactive shells
unless ~/.hushlogin exists. This would have the effect of it being at
the top of every terminal window.
- when the dialups move to Debathena, the "hostname" in the prompt is
forced to "athena" instead of the actual hostname. (ie:
"jdreed@athena:~$" Yes, the downside is that users don't know what
dialup they're logged into, but a) that's what ~/.lastdialup is for;
b) users should not have to keep track of the dialup hostnames; c)
users are discouraged from logging in to specific dialup hostnames
anyway.
I won't push for the first option, but I may for the second. I'm also
open to other suggestions that address the issues raised by the
helpdesk.
-Jon
