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What UNIX Shell Config Settings Work for Newbies?

Posted by Cliff on from the tab-completion-is-your-friend dept.

Human_Diastrophism asks: "I'm involved in the roll-out of a new *x-based computing service in my previously Windows-centric organization. I want things set up so that newcomers will understand and like what they see. They should feel encouraged to behave appropriately, i.e. explore and extend the environment for themselves. We're talking about technically literate folk who are simply new to the demands and freedoms of the command line. No shell advocacy, please; it's going to be ksh or bash. What would you put in a .profile or .rc to make things work smoothly and give the user the capabilities and feedback they need? I'm thinking about stuff like 'stty erase ^H' and 'set -o emacs' so the edit keys work, and a compact but informative prompt. But what else would you put in? What would you leave out?"

2 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. set -o emacs? by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'd think anyone who was familar with emacs shortcut keys would already know about the shell..

    I would say try to change the shell as little as possible from default, else you are going to confuse them if they have previously done a little command line work, or try to install it at home, or try to learn it from a book / web guide.

    I would consider using aliasing to stick a "-i" on rm... nice for beginners (and experts as well to be honest)

    --
    Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
  2. .profile/.rc Comments! by infernalC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    1. Set up the skeleton .bashrc with just a few customizations. For each customization, include a comment so that they will learn how to customize too. For example:

    # Here we will add a directory to the existing
    # command search path. This command tells the
    # shell to look in the bin directory under your
    # home directory (~) for programs before the
    # system-wide program directories.
    export PATH=~/bin:$PATH

    2. Send them an e-mail telling them that they can customize their accounts by editing ~/.bashrc with an easy editor (nano/pico) or whatever. Point them to a nice tutorial on the web, too. Also, tell them that they can reset their settings to the default by typing reset_shell_defaults, and put a script in /usr/local/bin that prompts "Are you sure? Your settings will be lost!" and then overwrites .bashrc. That way, they won't be afraid to play. Nobody ever got 1337 without playing around.


    3. Offer up Midinight Commander for those who need some curses.


    4. Tell them about man/apropos/info.