Perhaps you've just seen this in the bash prompt:
-bash-4.1#
Instead of the expected user@hostname#
It is probably because you are missing .bash_profile or .bashrc in your home directory
Check for yourself:
ls -al ~/|grep -E ".bash_profile|.bashrc"
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root&nbs........
Usually this is because when you created your user you added a user but didn't create their home directory and/or for some reason your .bashrc and .bash_profile in ~ (home) is broken/missing.
In your home just create the following files with the following content to solve it:
.bashrc and .bash_profile.
To apply it just relogin/start a new bash session
# .bash_profile
# Get the aliases and funct........
This through me for a loop when I would do a cp -rf or mv -f nothing would get overwritten even if piping y or yes to the command.
Type alias and you'll see why:
alias cp='cp -i'
alias l.='ls -d .* --color=auto'
alias ll='ls -l --color=auto'
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
alias mv='mv -i'
alias rm='rm -i'
The -i is a safeguard against messing things up but however does mess things up worse when you know what........