first part of line in terminal

[Doug]

On 01/09/2011 12:02 AM, Smoot Carl-Mitchell wrote:
> On Sat, 2011-01-08 at 23:51 -0500, Doug wrote:
>> Before the ~$ on the terminal, there is--depending on how I installed
>> the os, I guess--a two word
>> opening--I don't know what to call it.  On this particular distro, it
>> says doug at dougpclos:  On another
>> machine, where I open up an Ubuntu terminal, it says doug at doug-MM061:
>>
>> I assume that the first word--doug--is the user, i.e., me.  What is the
>> second?  Is it a machine name?
>> I have to change it in various distros so as to make it consistent
>> across several distros installed on any one machine.  So where can I
>> find it to change it?  And what is MM0-61?  I'm sure I never put that in
>> myself.  (Another distro on that same machine does not have MM061; it
>> has [doug at localhost ~]$  I don't
>> know why that distro has the [] either.)
> Look in /etc/bash.bashrc.  It is the PS1 prompt.  You can change it
> globally there or you can change it per user in the .bashrc file in your
> home directory.  Look in the bash man page under the PROMPTING section
> which explains what all the backslashed escape characters mean.
Thanx.  It looks like I have a bit of homework to do!  --doug