I set my shell prompt in /etc/profile:
EXPORT PS1="C:\w> "

As you all know, a login shell first runs /etc/profile then
~/.bash_profile .  I don't know if it's typical, but in addition
my /etc/profile calls ~/.bashrc which calls /etc/bashrc which calls the
various /etc/profile.d/* scripts, so that at login all my aliases get
set as well as my environment variables.

Now, because the environment got set at login, the only thing I need to
reset during a non-login shell, such as xterm, are the aliases so xterm
calls ~/.bashrc which calls /etc/bashrc which calls /etc/profile.d/* .

With that setup, my xterm environment looks exactly like my login shell
environment at the console.  Same path, same other environment
variables, same aliases.

Back in some time lost to the fuzzy memory of old age, the bash prompt
(PS1) remained the same.  The only place it ever gets set
is /etc/profile, and since all shells are children of that first login
shell, there's no way for it ever to change.  But lately I noticed that
xterm (and gnome-terminal) does indeed change PS1 to something else...
specifically "\s-\v\$" .

None of my other environment variables from /etc/profile are getting
removed or overwritten.  I exported a test variable (export FOOBAR="foo
bar") and that remains in the xterm environment.

Those of you who read and remember everything I write here may recall
that I successfully built xorg 7.1 recently.  Well, I restored 6.8.2,
reset all my paths and libraries to /usr/X11R6, logged out, logged back
in, and ran the old xorg... and it did the same thing, so it's not just
something that changed with the new X.

I grepped all of /usr/X11R7 (and /usr/X11R6) looking for anything that
contains a command to change PS1, but I can't find anything.  Still, I'm
sure it must be X since the problem exists in both xterm and
gnome-terminal, both of which inherit the X environment.

Any idea what other process might be changing the PS1 bash prompt after
xinit takes over?

-- 
Peter B. Steiger
Cheyenne, WY


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