The escape sequence for adding colors are an exception - If you add backslashes to those brackets, it won't (and doesn't) work as expected.
I tried what you said : Set PS1 = "\n\e\[0;31m\u: \w\n# \e\[m" The resulting prompt did, still, exhibit the corruption explained in my bug report, and the prompt appeared as follows: 0;31mroot: /home/ash # * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It seems I shouldn't have used the \e character.. The default Ubuntu .bashrc has another way of doing it, which I tried to learn from. And it seems it works! Here is my working sequence (and no screen corruption!) PS1="\n\[\033[0;31m\]\u: \w\n# \[\033[00m\]" Note that not all square brackets are preceded with backslashes! Thanks for replying anyway. I was only trying to copy-paste from the web, but overlooked the example that was already in the default .bashrc !! Sorry for the trouble.. -- Regards, Ashley. On Tue, Sep 9, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Chet Ramey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ashley Wilson wrote: > >> Repeat-By: >> >> Set a custom prompt using the PS1 variable as follows: >> >> PS1="\n\e[0;31m\u: \w\n# \e[m" >> >> Then, browse command history using up/down keys. > > As the documentation states, you need to bracket sequences of non-printing > characters in prompt strings with the \[ and \] escape sequences. > > Chet > >