How to change the font style of terminal prompt in Ubuntu MATE 16.04

Solution 1:

_{(Some of the screenshots below reveal use of a particular text editor. If this is problematic for the reader, they are hereby begged to consider the use of this editor by the post author an act of blameless naivety)}

The terminal prompt is a part of your user environment called PS1. It is defined in your .bashrc file, which you can edit to change it. You can see what it is currently with echo $PS1. Here is mine:

$ echo $PS1
\[\e]0;\u@\h: \w\a\]${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;35m\]\w\$\[\033[00m\]

This makes my prompt look like this compared to some command...

Making a coloured prompt is achieved by uncommenting this line in your .bashrc

#force_color_prompt=yes

so it looks like this:

force_color_prompt=yes

This causes the prompt to be set by the line after if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then

which by default is:

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

The colours are set by these codes:

• light green \[\033[01;32m\]
• white \[\033[00m\]
• light blue \[\033[01;34m\]

and then back to white. You can see they are the same apart from the number in the second set of brackets. Here's a few more escape codes to choose from:

Blue        0;34     Light Blue    1;34
Green       0;32     Light Green   1;32
Cyan        0;36     Light Cyan    1;36
Red         0;31     Light Red     1;31

Here are some other options to make your prompt stand out

---All tested in MATE terminal on Ubuntu MATE 16.04---

When applying these changes to a white prompt, I leave this line commented:

#force_color_prompt=yes

And edit the fourth line of this section of .bashrc:

if [ "$color_prompt" = yes ]; then
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '
else
    PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w\$ '

If you want to apply underline, and highlight effects to a coloured prompt, then as explained before you need to uncomment force_color_prompt=yes, and edit the second line instead of the fourth. In the examples below, I am referring to the "fourth line" and "second line" from the snippet above.

Bold prompt:

Change the fourth line to include the escape sequences \[\e[1m\] (bold) and \[\e[0m\] (stop bold)

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[1m\]\u@\h:\w\$ \[\e[0m\]'

Not a big difference - I include the line above for comparison.

In the colour escape sequences "light" colours (with 1 instead of 0 as shown in table above) are considered bold. I tried using the bold sequence on the coloured prompt, but it seems MATE terminal doesn't allow this to make it even more bold. I also tried it using setaf code but still no result. Maybe I'm getting something wrong. I also couldn't manage an italic prompt, and I didn't even try a blinking prompt - that's just not OK.

Underlined prompt:

Change the fourth line to include the escape sequences \[\e[4m\] and \[\e[24m\]

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[4m\]\u@\h:\w\$ \[\e[24m\]'

For underlined coloured prompt, uncomment force_color_prompt=yes and add the \[\e[4m\] sequence to the second line twice. The existing reset codes will terminate the effect:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[4m\]\[\033[01;32m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\e[4m\]\[\033[01;34m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

Highlighted prompt:

Change the fourth line to include \[\e[7m\] and \[\e[27m\]

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\e[7m\]\u@\h:\w\$ \[\e[27m\]'

For colour highlighting, uncomment the #force_color_prompt=yes and change the colour escape codes in the second line to have a 4 instead of a 3, for example:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;42m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[01;44m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

To get the highlighting all one colour, remove the first reset and the second colour sequence:

PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\[\033[01;42m\]\u@\h:\w\[\033[00m\]\$ '

For more exotic options, see my favourite AU question and this site for a detailed guide.

Obviously I recommend making backups as you play around , but if you ever FUBAR your .bashrc you can just copy a fresh one from /etc/skel:

cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/.bashrc