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I'm running a command-line Debian system, accessed via SSH through PuTTY, and am experiencing differing terminal functionality between root and other users.

When logging in as root, the terminal displays

root@mydomain:/currentdir

as I'd expect for a Debian system - I'm also able to use standard arrow key shortcuts (Up arrow key displays previous commands, etc.) However, when logged in as any other user, the terminal prompt simply shows $, and arrow keys register as ^[[A (for Up) etc.

I'm curious to know what's causing this behavior, and how I can change it.

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  • Have you compared /home/root/.bashrc and /home/root/.bash_profile to the corresponding files in /home/other_user?
    – nrpeterson
    Commented Jun 10, 2013 at 14:27

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Are you sure you're not running dash as your default shell when you login as another user? On my computer it looks exactly like you describe:

self@debian~$ dash
$ ^[[A^[[A

It goes the same for sh (which actually seems to be an alias to dash) :

self@debian~$ sh
$ ^[[A^[[A
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  • This was indeed the issue, thanks - running echo $SHELL as otherUser came up with /bin/sh. Changing this was simple - ran chsh and entered bin/bash. This from here
    – FarmerGedden
    Commented Jun 10, 2013 at 14:40

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