ok -- just a quicky: if you've ever been in a text editor or another program, shelled out to another instance of bash, and forgot the editor was there, you might have logged out of all consoles or ran ps and found it. but if you're running screen like i do, i don't log out for weeks, and miss those editors until i shut down for something. so, you can add the variable $SHLVL to y our prompt, so your shell level will be displayed. if you're using screen, and it's not your login shell, you ight want to: export SHLVL=0 so that screen's shells will have level 1, and all subshells will have level 2 or more. otherwise, screen will have level 2, and other subshells will have level 3. this might apply to ther situations. now onto the meat of this rather long quick tip: you can set the variable in your prompt for example: export PS1="\h:\w [$SHLVL]\$" so you'll get a prompt like: fast:~ [1]$ or if you were in a subshell, 1 level deep (from an editor or such): fast:/directory [2]$ if you have any questions, just ask - i'll help if i can.
