Two Simple .bashrc Tweaks

Dmitri Popov

Productivity Sauce

Apr 24, 2012 GMT
Dmitri Popov

The ~/.bashrc configuration file contains dozens of options you can modify to customize the Bash shell to your liking. Here are two super-simple tweaks that can make your work with the shell more pleasant and efficient.

Open the ~/.bashrc file in a text editor, locate the #force_color_prompt=yes line and uncomment it. This will add a dash of color to the Bash shell.

To avoid typing long commands, you can define aliases. For example, to quickly establish an SSH connection to a server on my local network, I added the b3 alias to the .bashrc file:

alias b3='ssh dmpop@192.168.1.7'

This way, I only need to type b3 and press Enter to connect to the server. Neither of these tweaks are new, but they are worth mentioning, nonetheless.

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