Different terminals in Debian for root and other users

Question

I use Debian 6 and the terminal. When I type su -l I get something like this:

root@mycomputer:

as prompt. When I type su -l someuser I get this prompt:

$

There, I cannot use TAB to autocomplete paths, the source command is not known etc. How can I get the "style" of the root for every user? Does this depend on the distinction between bash, shell?

Answer 1

Yes, it depends on which shell is used. By default, new user accounts have their shell set to /bin/sh, the Bourne shell, which does not support more advanced features such as line editing, completion, etc.

Use chsh to change the user's shell. For example,

chsh -s $(which bash) someuser

will change someuser's shell to bash. You must give the full path to -s, and that path should be listed in /etc/shells.

I don't know which one you are currently using for root, so run echo $SHELL to find out. (Alternatively, run getent passwd root; the shell will be the last (7th) field.)

Answer 2

Edit the user's .bashrc and enable bash completion or type . /etc/bash_completion.