Duplicate bash prompts

Question

I'm having an interesting issue with XFCE Terminal/Gnome Terminal (not reproducible in XTerm), where executing bash or logging in using login or su will open a new Bash instance inside a Bash instance as shown:

_randall@manbearpig:/home/randall[root@manbearpig randall]#

Ctrl+D and exit both exit back to the original bash instance. How do I make these terminal emulators behave like Xterm, which opens the new user account or bash instance over the original one?

Answer 1

I don't understand the problem. typing bash, login or su are SUPPOSED to start a new shell.

What is it that you expect to happen?

I cannot see where your system is doing anything wrong.

if you want to open another TERMINAL program, then type gnome-terminal or whatever the program name is.

Bash is a shell, where you type commands, gnome-terminal, xterm, konsole (and lots more) are just terminal emulators which show the output of a shell (bash/sh/dash/ksh/csh/zsh...)

Answer 2

if

_randall@manbearpig:/home/randall[root@manbearpig randall]#

is not the prompt string you expect, then check PS1 environment var which contains the prompt string format. Search "PROMPTING" in bash manual to read more about PS1.

Answer 3

You would have to use something like:

exec bash # or exec login or exec su

But be careful, as this replaces the parent process, the whole window/tab will likely die and there is no guarantee the new shell will "save" it. You'll have to try it yourself, I can only guarantee it works in Konsole.