How do I create aliases?

[james147]

The immediately apparent difference between 'sudo -sH' and 'sudo -i' is the $PWD, the former keeps the current working directory (comparable to 'su') while the latter switches to root's home directory (comparable to 'su -', 'su -l' or 'su --login')...of course you can set an alias for both.

Another difference is -i starts a full login shell, -s only starts an interactive shell... This makes most difference when you have customised the shell login some how over just the interactive starting.

[kubicle]

Thanks for the clarifications I get most of it except the saving as .bash_aliases if you could give a concrete example I would appreciate it.

You can just do something like:

echo "alias su='sudo -i'" >> ~/.bash_aliases

which will create your first alias and the file ~/.bash_aliases (if it doesn't exist).
You can then edit the file with a text editor or use another echo command to add additional aliases. Remember to 'source ~/.bash_aliases' or restart your shell for your new aliases to take effect.

[kubicle]

Another difference is -i starts a full login shell, -s only starts an interactive shell... This makes most difference when you have customised the shell login some how over just the interactive starting.

I take it the difference is reading the various profile files or not.

[james147]

I take it the difference is reading the various profile files or not.

Basically, possibly some pam related stuff but I am not entirely sure... the difference on a default kubuntu install is very minimal though, you only really need to worry about this (and probably already understand more about it) if you customise the login process at all.

[michel]

I did an alias for su=sudo -i and another reload='source ~/.bash_aliases'

Thanks to all.

Michel