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

Nick Bargnesi nbargnesi at gmail.com
Thu Dec 9 16:38:16 UTC 2004


On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:26:38 +0000, Stuart Children
<stuart at terminus.co.uk> wrote:
> Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> >>I'd say no regardless. It's too dificult to choose
> >>appropriate colours.
> >
> > I dont think so. with some amount of careful thought
> > it should be possible
> 
> There have been several good reasons given already why colours in
> particular are bad. I'll give one more: are you sure that a given colour
> implies what you think it does in different cultures?
> 
> > If fedora was catering just to old time unix users who
> > are used to working with Linux on the server, then
> > this definitely is not needed but since its trying to
> > be appealing to everyone including newbies, it is
> > important that we do something like this.
> 
> If you really want to make the "danger" of a root shell more obvious to
> newbies, then how about: Create a new application launcher "root
> terminal" which prompts for the root password, gives you a nice stern
> warning dialogue, and could have different window decoration to a
> regular terminal. This way root's shell is left alone for people who
> know how to get there other ways, and all the "warnings" are easily
> localisable and themable - as well as contained within the one launcher
> that the rest of us don't have to use.
> 
> I'm all for getting as many people as possible to use Fedora. However,
> that does not mean we should be pandering to newbies; or doing things
> that will inconvenience the more experienced users. The command line is
> supposed to be powerful - but with great power comes great
> responsibility (apologies, couldn't resist). Until newbies gain enough
> experience for that, they should be given more friendly and safer
> methods to configure their system. So if you feel the
> "newbie-friendlyness" of Fedora needs work then I'd suggest time and
> effort would best be spent helping create/improve the GUI admin tools.
> Those are also beneficial to advanced users.
> 

This is the best idea yet, drop the whole idea of altering the prompt
and stick any warnings inside kde, gnome, and xfce.  I can't say I
would want my fedora installations to warn me about using root though.

> Cheers
> 
> --
> Stuart
> 
> 
> 
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> 


-- 

Nick Bargnesi
http://www.den-4.com
Den 4 Software

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