<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Requirements</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Bash Prompt HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Introduction and Administrivia" HREF="c23.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Revision History" HREF="x30.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="How To Use This Document" HREF="x77.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Bash Prompt HOWTO: </TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x30.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 1. Introduction and Administrivia</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="x77.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="AEN71" ></A >1.3. Requirements</H1 ><P >You will need Bash. This should be easy: it's the default shell for just about every Linux distribution I know of. The commonest version is now 2.0.x. Version 1.14.7 was the standard for a long time, but that started to fade around 2000. I've been using Bash 2.0.x for quite a while now. With recent revisions of the HOWTO (later than July 2001) I've been using a lot of code (mainly ${} substitutions) that I believe is specific to 2.x and may not work with Bash 1.x. You can check your Bash version by typing <TT CLASS="USERINPUT" ><B >echo $BASH_VERSION</B ></TT > at the prompt. On my machine, it responds with <TT CLASS="COMPUTEROUTPUT" >2.05a.0(1)-release</TT >. </P ><P >Shell programming experience would be good, but isn't essential: the more you know, the more complex the prompts you'll be able to create. I assume a basic knowledge of shell programming and Unix utilities as I go through this tutorial. However, my own shell programming skills are limited, so I give a lot of examples and explanation that may appear unnecessary to an experienced shell programmer. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x30.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="x77.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Revision History</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="c23.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >How To Use This Document</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >