Tutorial [Info] colored bash-prompt

[guidol]

Over a year (or two?) I used a PS1-line in my ~/-bashrc with many cryptic ANSI-Escape-codes which were hard to read and edit

 

export PS1='\[\033[1;36m\]\u\[\033[1;37m\]@\[\033[1;33m\]\h\[\033[1;37m\](\[\033[1;32m\]$THEIP\[\033[1;37m\])\[\033[1;31m\]:\[\033[1;36m\]\w\[\033[1;31m\]\$\[\033[0m\] '

Today I did installed Linux Lite 4.6 on a PC (a former Chromebox) and did see the nice Powerline prompt and did try to use that on a nanoPi Neo2.

I installed the packages fonts-powerline &  powerline and copied the powerline-script /usr/share/powerline/bindings/bash/powerline.sh

from the pc to the NanoPi Neo2.

It did work after I used UTF8 translation in pUTTY, but it wasnt very perfomant

 

So I decided to cleanup my PS1 line for better reading,

 

I had to define some variables and then I did put these in my PS1 export line in ~/.bashrc:
 

export THEIP="$(/sbin/ifconfig | grep "inet " | grep -v 127.0.0. | awk '{print $2}')"
BRed='\[\033[31;1m\]'
BGreen='\[\033[32;1m\]'
BYellow='\[\033[33;1m\]'
BCyan='\[\033[36;1m\]'
BWhite='\[\033[37;1m\]'
Reset='\[\033[0m\]'
UserPromptPS1='\$'
export PS1="${BCyan}\u${BWhite}@${BYellow}\h${BWhite}(${BGreen}${THEIP}${BWhite})${BRed}:${BCyan}\w${BRed}${UserPromptPS1}${Reset} "

# \u    = User
# @     = @
# \h    = Host
# \w	= working directory
# \$	= # for root (uid=0) or $ for user

That worked well and did give me the same result as my old but bad readable PS1-line

Now its - for me - much more easy to edit

 

As Information some more useable color-definition (B before the color is for Bright and colors starting with On are for the Background):

Black='\[\033[30m\]'
Red='\[\033[31m\]'
Green='\[\033[32m\]'
Yellow='\[\033[33m\]'
Blue='\[\033[34m\]'
Magenta='\[\033[35m\]'
Cyan='\[\033[36m\]'
White='\[\033[37m\]'

BBlack='\[\033[30;1m\]'
BRed='\[\033[31;1m\]'
BGreen='\[\033[32;1m\]'
BYellow='\[\033[33;1m\]'
BBlue='\[\033[34;1m\]'
BMagenta='\[\033[35;1m\]'
BCyan='\[\033[36;1m\]'
BWhite='\[\033[37;1m\]'

OnBlack='\[\033[40m\]'
OnRed='\[\033[41m\]'
OnGreen='\[\033[42m\]'
OnYellow='\[\033[43m\]'
OnBlue='\[\033[44m\]'
OnMagenta='\[\033[45m\]'
OnCyan='\[\033[46m\]'
OnWhite='\[\033[47m\]'

OnBBlack='\[\033[40;1m\]'
OnBRed='\[\033[41;1m\]'
OnBGreen='\[\033[42;1m\]'
OnBYellow='\[\033[43;1m\]'
OnBBlue='\[\033[44;1m\]'
OnBMagenta='\[\033[45;1m\]'
OnBCyan='\[\033[46;1m\]'
OnBWhite='\[\033[47;1m\]'
Reset='\[\033[0m\]'

 

[Tido]

Hi @guidol,

 

You describe your journey to this result, but let's think about somebody who just wants to rebuild your config. Can you do a step by step without your legacy ?

 

Thank you in advance

 

[guidol]

10 hours ago, Tido said:

You describe your journey to this result, but let's think about somebody who just wants to rebuild your config. Can you do a step by step without your legacy ?

which of the 2 configs you want to rebuild?

for the non-chromebox (colored on black) prompt line there is already everything you need to put on the end of your ~/.bashrc in the first source-part box above.

 

for the chromebox prompt you need to install the 2 packages fonts-powerline &  powerline via

apt install fonts-powerline powerline

copy powerline.sh to your home-directory:

cp ./powerline.sh ~/

and append at the end of your ~/.bashrc the line:

source ~/powerline.sh

and change pUTTY to UTF8-translation:

Change Setting => Window => Translation => Remote character set => UTF-8 => Apply

or save it directly to your pUTTY session

 

then activate the new ~./bashrc while starting a new bash with

bash

or reboot

 

BTW: you have to change the ~/.bashrc for every user where you want to use it - for me these files are

/home/root/.bashrc    and

/home/guido/.bashrc

 

Do you got any other questions?

 

powerline.sh

[Tido]

Hi Guido,

 

Thank you. As you mentioned several components I wasn't sure what is really needed and to install was a bit overkill, at first sight.

I could have gone ahead with try and error, but as you already have the knowledge, I thought it was better to ask.

 

Apart from that, others can now also easily benefit from your lesson 😊

 

Cheers,

Tido

[sfx2000]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:55 AM, guidol said:

Over a year (or two?) I used a PS1-line in my ~/-bashrc with many cryptic ANSI-Escape-codes which were hard to read

 

hard to read - that's a good point in general with ANSI in general - part of the problem for me is that I have challenges in color vision, so some distros and/or terminals default to items I honestly have trouble with.

[sfx2000]

On 11/7/2019 at 9:55 AM, guidol said:

a former Chromebox

 

How old of a chromebox - is it still supported by ChromeOS?

 

(FWIW - there are more than a few ChromeBoxes and ChromeBooks that are end of support, so it's a legit question)

 

More recent versions of ChromeOS have linux app support via Crostini - much easier that Crouton or Gallium that break security of the platform by going into dev mode.

[sfx2000]

And for those who live on the command line - byobu is like screen and tmux on steroids - and it's in the ubuntu repos...

 

 

If one wants to have a fun demo...

 

 

byobu rocks...

[guidol]

10 hours ago, sfx2000 said:

 

How old of a chromebox - is it still supported by ChromeOS?

(FWIW - there are more than a few ChromeBoxes and ChromeBooks that are end of support, so it's a legit question)

More recent versions of ChromeOS have linux app support via Crostini - much easier that Crouton or Gallium that break security of the platform by going into dev mode.

@sfx2000 My Chromebox was supported until September 2019

but one year ago I installed the SeaBIOS ( https://mrchromebox.tech/#home ) and use it as a real PC.

Its a HP CB1-020NG ( Intel Celeron 2955U, 2x 1.40GHz ) and I updated it with 8GB RAM (only one socket)

and a 120GB SSD ( running cool & quiet )
I also got a old Samsung ARM Chromebook

 

[sfx2000]

On 11/9/2019 at 7:38 AM, guidol said:

Its a HP CB1-020NG ( Intel Celeron 2955U, 2x 1.40GHz ) and I updated it with 8GB RAM (only one socket)

 

That's actually one of the nicer units, similar to the Windows Stream Mini boxes with different UEFI and obviously windows.

[Tido]

@guidol, @sfx2000,  more to tweak.

The HISTIGNORE sounds fantastic  https://cyb.org.uk/2021/05/03/bash-productivity.html