bash is a Unix shell written for the GNU Project. Its name is an acronym for Bourne-again shell, a pun ('Bourne again' / 'born again') on the name of the Bourne shell (sh), an important early Unix shell written by Stephen Bourne and distributed with Version 7 Unix circa 1978. bash was created in 1987 by Brian Fox. In 1990, Chet Ramey became the primary maintainer.
bash is the default shell on Debian. Its output can be colorized to increase human readability.
Add the following contents to the system-wide configuration file /etc/bash.bashrc or the user's ~/.bashrc, using your preferred text editor:
nano ~/.bashrc
# ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells.
# Note: PS1 and umask are already set in /etc/profile. You should not
# need this unless you want different defaults for root.
# PS1='${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\h:\w\$ '
# umask 022
# You may uncomment the following lines if you want `ls' to be colorized:
export LS_OPTIONS='--color=auto'
eval "`dircolors`"
alias ls='ls $LS_OPTIONS'
alias ll='ls $LS_OPTIONS -l'
alias l='ls $LS_OPTIONS -lA'
# Some more alias to avoid making mistakes:
# alias rm='rm -i'
# alias cp='cp -i'
# alias mv='mv -i'Apply changes by executing the command
~$ source /etc/bash.bashrc; source ~/.bashrc
Or by executing
~$ exec bash
Now test to make sure that changes were applied
ls
The output of commands should appear in color.
