What is PS1 - Default Interaction Prompt

The default interactive prompt on your Linux can be modified as shown below
to something useful and informative. In the following example, the default
PS1 was “\s-\v\$”, which displays the shell name and the version number. Let
us change this default behavior to display the username, hostname and
current working directory name as shown below.

-bash-3.2$
export PS1="\u@\h \w> "
ramesh@dev-db ~> cd /etc/mail
ramesh@dev-db /etc/mail>
[Note: Prompt changed to "username@hostname current-
dir>" format]
Following PS1 codes are used in this example:
o \u – Username
o \h – Hostname
o \w - Full pathname of current directory. Please note that when
 you are in the home directory, this will display only ~ as shown
above
Note that there is a space at the end in the value of PS1. Personally, I prefer
a space at the end of the prompt for better readability.
Make this setting permanent by adding export PS1=”\u@\h \w> ” to either
.bash_profile (or) .bashrc as shown below.

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ramesh@dev-db ~> vi ~/.bash_profile
ramesh@dev-db ~> vi ~/.bashrc
[Note: Add export PS1="\u@\h \w> " to one of the above
files]
Refer to the next chapter for several practical examples of PS1 usage in
detail.