No /etc/passwd file at all? You're looking from bash, not from
Windows, right? From Windows it'd be C:\Cygwin\etc\passwd...
This sounds like something went wrong during the installation. You
can generate the default passwd file like so:
mkpasswd -l >/etc/passwd
But if your prompt is "c:\cygwin" then that sounds like you're not in
bash at all, but still in the Windows shell (cmd.exe or command.com).
On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 11:44 AM, DY wrote:
Or maybe the problem is the profile.
OK, totally different. The password file identifies the users who
exist on the system and the location of their home directory. The
profile is a set of bash commands to run automatically when you log
in. The only connection is that your home directory is used to find
your personal profile files.
After a bit of searching, I found the profile in /etc/defaults/etc,
but I don't know how to edit it properly to make the above happen.
/etc/defaults/etc/profile is not used by anything; that's just a copy
of the default file that goes into /etc/profile. What actually gets
run is /etc/profile. But the way to set things up for your account is
to make a .profile (or .bash_profile, if you'll always be using bash)
in your home directory.
To set the prompt you need to set the PS1 variable.
But again, make sure you're actually running bash!