Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I accidentally changed all the contents of the .bashrc file and I haven't scripted it yet so there's no problem for now. I added little scripts to it (just a few alias), so I can write them again one by one.
How can I restore my .bashrc file with the default settings?
I use Linux Mint.
There exist backup copies of .bashrc, .profile etc. in /etc/skel/. So one could replace a corrupt .bashrc simply by overwitting from there.
How do I restore .bashrc to its default?
cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/
There's a default bashrc file you can restore:
cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~ (equivalent of cp /etc/skel/.bashrc /home/<user>)
~/ with copy / move actions. Kinda obvious when one thinks about it for two seconds :-)
Mar 19 at 14:20
The original file that is used when every home directory is created is located in:
/etc/skel/.bashrc
The easiest way:
cat /etc/skel/.bashrc > ~/.bashrc
cat and > to redirect the output the ~/.bashrc does the exact same thing. It's just the first thing that came to mind. One could ask the inverse for the other method but the same would be true.
Mar 19 at 13:58
rsync and even with that, there are switches that can be used to prevent it.
Mar 19 at 18:56
To all of the answers that say /etc/skel/.bashrc -
(and similarly when /etc/skel/.bashrc is not the final answer
eg when an IT department administering engineering workstations makes slightly different changes depending on role such as RTL table designer or verification engineer
Add "VERSION CONTROL YOUR HOME DIRECTORY", or at least your rc files.
If you make any significant changes to them
