Why is “MINGW64” appearing on my Git bash?

Question

I had to format my laptop, and so I had to install Git again. However it is quite different from the one I had yesterday, the icon is not the default orange one anymore, it

Answer 1

As stated by @patthoyts

MINGW64 is the new icon being used with Git for Windows 2.x. The MINGW64 is the value from the MSYSTEM environment variable. This has been included in the bash prompt by setting PS1 in the /etc/bash.bashrc file. You can either override this in your own $HOME/.profile or edit the distributed one to remove that if you prefer.

MINGW64 and the name of the system is something that we don't want to or need to see always and sometimes may want to remove them for effective use of display space. To do that, we just need to comment out 4 lines in \Git\etc\profile.d\git-prompt.sh which is typically inside your program files.

PS1="$PS1"'\[\033[32m\]'       # change to green
PS1="$PS1"'\u@\h '             # user@host<space>
PS1="$PS1"'\[\033[35m\]'       # change to purple
PS1="$PS1"'$MSYSTEM '          # show MSYSTEM

These are the 4 lines in git-prompt.sh, typically line number 14 to 17, that can be commented out by placing # at the start of each line to remove computer name shown in green and MSYSTEM shown in purple. If you just want to remove one of these, you can comment lines accordingly. It should look similar to this

# PS1="$PS1"'\[\033[32m\]'       # change to green
# PS1="$PS1"'\u@\h '             # user@host<space>
# PS1="$PS1"'\[\033[35m\]'       # change to purple
# PS1="$PS1"'$MSYSTEM '          # show MSYSTEM

Answer 2

I just noticed this on my machine as well. The orange icon you're referring to is probably the Ubuntu icon you would normally get while running the "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" app. However, when you installed GIT, it also uses a version of bash. The app is called "Git Bash" in the start menu.

When I simply typed "Bash" in the search box and then and pressed enter, Windows opened the "best match", which happens (in my case) to be GIT installation with MINGW64. If you type "Ubuntu" instead, or if you look at the start menu's choices, you should see the other bash.

This is important to know that the two environments are separate, since programs from one environment may not be installed in the other.

Answer 3

Easiest way to remove 'MINGW64' is to comment two lines in file:

\Git\etc\profile.d\git-prompt.sh
...
# PS1="$PS1"'\[\033[35m\]'       # change to purple
# PS1="$PS1"'$MSYSTEM '          # show MSYSTEM

Answer 4

export PS1="${PS1/\$TITLEPREFIX:}"; export PS1="${PS1/\$MSYSTEM }" >> ~/.bashrc

Answer 5

This is the new icon being used with Git for Windows 2.x. The website needs an update for that I guess but there are not many volunteers typically.

The MINGW64 is the value from the MSYSTEM environment variable. This has been included in the bash prompt by setting PS1 in the /etc/bash.bashrc file. You can either override this in your own $HOME/.profile or edit the distributed one to remove that if you prefer.

Answer 6

It's a little different in the new git versions.

• copy the line below in /etc/bash.bashrc: export PS1='\[\e]0;\w\a\]\n\[\e[32m\]\u@\h \[\e[35m\]$MSYSTEM\[\e[0m\] \[\e[33m\]\w\[\e[0m\]\n'"${_ps1_symbol}"' '

• add it to ~/.bashrc and do some custom edit: export PS1='\[\e]0;\w\a\]\n\[\e[32m\]\u@\h \[\e[33m\]\w\[\e[0m\]\n '

  If you do not like the additional blank line when press Enter, just remove the \n above.

• source the ~/.bashrc file: source ~/.bashrc

• my terminal example: