in a related note

[sbc_compliant]

customizing the prompt (and other stuff in the .profile) can be immediately accessed after saving, by re-sourcing it thusly:

bash-2.05b$ . .profile
user@host:~ Fri Sep 01 15:25:20$

and re-invoking universal settings, prior to running a script or something, is performed thusly:

user@host:~ Fri Sep 01 15:25:20$ . /etc/profile
user@host:~ Fri Sep 01 15:30:49$ 

Comments

Hmmm.

[aenloo.livejournal.com]

...but the real question is why use bash? ;-)

Re: Hmmm.

[sbc-compliant.livejournal.com]

ksh annoyed me.

it was easier to invoke bash (or tcsh or zsh) at the time, than to learn to make .profile and what have you so I could arrow up to get my previous command