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When I open my terminal it shows this:

wpa-2-602:~ david$

I just curious what the wpa-2-602 means? "david" is my user name, and sometimes it was something else. What makes it change?

1 Answer 1

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That's based on the PS1 variable set in Bash's initialization. Yours appears to be the default, which is your computer's name, followed by a colon, then the current directory (in your example, that'd be the home directory for your computer [~]), then your username (david).

Here is an article about customizing your PS1, and there are plenty of questions both here and over at Super User about changing and fixing it.

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    The computer's name will be used unless the dhcp client get's another host name when connecting to a network. My guess is that the OP is noticing the name change when he's on a network whose dhcp server actually responds to the host name request from his computer.
    – ephsmith
    Jul 12, 2012 at 1:14
  • Any particular complaint from the downvoter?
    – Cajunluke
    Jul 12, 2012 at 18:54

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