What UNIX Shell Config Settings Work for Newbies?

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?"

Comments

Re:Some other useful things

[scotch]

alias -x xterm='xterm -ls -sb -rv'

Use your .Xdefaults or .Xresources

alias -x psg='ps ax | grep'

What about pgrep?

alias -x bye='clear;exit'

There's a setting for this one, too.

alias -x ssh='ssh -X'

ForwardX11 = yes in the general section of your .ssh/config.

HOST=`hostname -s`

What the fuck for?

if [ "X${TERM}" == "Xxterm" ]; then
[snip]

Again, what the fuck for? Alias vi to vim if you want, vim can figure out what kind of terminal it is using. Most shells will show your path in the prompt without having to mess with cd.

Are all BSD apologists so retarded?

Grin/Duck/Run

Re:Some other useful things

[scotch]

LOL - get over yourself. All your assumptions about me are wrong. Every single one of them! Why didn't you just go ahead and assume I was gay or a child rapist or something while you were at it? That would probably make you feel better.

PS: I love you.