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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


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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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jun 10 '13 at 16:18

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Have you compared /home/root/.bashrc and /home/root/.bash_profile to the corresponding files in /home/other_user? –  nrpeterson Jun 10 '13 at 14:27
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up vote 2 down vote accepted

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 Jun 10 '13 at 14:40
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