How do I only display the base dir in my Ubuntu Terminal?

Solution 1:

Changing the Bash the prompt is easy. Just assign a new value to PS1:

PS1="myprompt : "

Now the new prompt will look like

myprompt :

Bash allows prompt strings to be customized by inserting a number of backslash-escaped special characters that are decoded as follows:

* \a : an ASCII bell character (07)
* \d : the date in "Weekday Month Date" format (e.g., "Tue May 26")
* \D{format} : the format is passed to strftime(3) and the result is inserted into the prompt string; an empty format results in a locale-specific time representation. The braces are required
* \e : an ASCII escape character (033)
* \h : the hostname up to the first '.'
* \H : the hostname
* \j : the number of jobs currently managed by the shell
* \l : the basename of the shell’s terminal device name
* \n : newline
* \r : carriage return
* \s : the name of the shell, the basename of $0 (the portion following the final slash)
* \t : the current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format
* \T : the current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format
* \@ : the current time in 12-hour am/pm format
* \A : the current time in 24-hour HH:MM format
* \u : the username of the current user
* \v : the version of bash (e.g., 2.00)
* \V : the release of bash, version + patch level (e.g., 2.00.0)
* \w : the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
* \W : the basename of the current working directory, with $HOME abbreviated with a tilde
* \! : the history number of this command
* \# : the command number of this command
* \$ : if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $
* \nnn : the character corresponding to the octal number nnn
* \\ : a backslash
* \[ : begin a sequence of non-printing characters, which could be used to embed a terminal control sequence into the prompt
* \] : end a sequence of non-printing characters

As an example lets create a prompt string that displays today's date and hostname:

PS1="\d \h $ "

Output is like

Sun Sep 04 ubuntu $

When you are happy with your prompt string you can make it the default prompt, even after rebooting by setting the PS1 var in .bashrc

Solution 2:

As @nkr1pt said, you want to set PS1

PS1='\u@\h \W \$ '

Also check out setting the env variable PROMPT_COMMAND, which is a command which is run every time bash prints out a prompt. I have mine set to:

PROMPT_COMMAND='echo -ne "\e]0;$USER@${HOSTNAME%%.*}: $(pwd -P)\a"'

Obviously with USER and HOSTNAME set elsewhere. This puts a full path in your term title.

Solution 3:

Bash 4 has a variable called PROMPT_DIRTRIM

user@host:~$ echo $PS1
\u@\h:\w\$
user@host:~$ cd /usr/share/doc/bash/examples
dennis@emperor:/usr/share/doc/bash/examples$ PROMPT_DIRTRIM=2
dennis@emperor:.../bash/examples$

which sets the minimum number of directory elements to display.