RFC: root/non-root bash prompts different colours?

[Matthew E. Lauterbach]

On Thursday, December 09, 2004 8:04 AM, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> 
> The chief problem with the "less is more" approach is probably that
> after repeated issuance, the impact is somewhat lessened. I 
> would think
> almost any prompting system suffers similarly; prompts that are
> successful at overcoming that factor probably fail usability tests (at
> least with regard to the "user satisfaction" portion of those tests).
> 
> The above example, and similar fixes, really only have impact when
> viewed in contrast with the existing prompt, e.g. an su 
> session launched
> from a user's normal prompt. In that case, the question becomes: How
> much better is it to see the slightly longer $PS1, in addition to the
> normal change of '$' to '#'?  When one logs into the console or X as
> root, on the other hand and this prompt is issued from start to finish
> of the session -- or normal scrolling processes remove the 
> contrasting,
> original prompt from view -- my bet would be that the user quickly
> becomes used to the prompt, and it loses its effectiveness.
> 
> Sorry to butt in, especially if this particular US$0.02 is redundant.
> 
> -- 
> Paul W. Frields, RHCE
> 

Perhaps you could just rig the keyboard to give the user a mild electric
shock every couple of seconds.  That would teach people to limit their root
use.

Matthew E. Lauterbach