Q:

Compact cygwin terminal

I'm looking for a way to make the cygwin terminal more compact, or an alternate terminal that is more compact.  Currently, every command I enter has a header line above it with username and pwd, and there is a blank line trailing every command.  For instance:  
username ~
$ cd tmp

username ~/tmp
$ 

3 lines for every 1 line of command.  I frequently work on a small screen, which makes all this wasted space quite irritating.  Is there a setting somewhere I can alter to prevent all this wasted space?  Or, perhaps another terminal?  
Thanks in advance.  

A:

That's the default shell prompt set by Cygwin.
To use a smaller prompt in your current terminal:
PS1='$ '

To make the change permanent, put that command in your ~/.bashrc file.
You can set the prompt to just about anything you like, as explained by the bash manual (there are several variables that control different prompts; $PS1 is the main one).
It's important to remember than in Cygwin (as in Linux and Unix), the terminal program is a separate program from the shell that runs in it.  The prompt is controlled by the shell; bash is the default.  The graphical display is controlled by the terminal emulator, which could be rxvt, mintty, xterm, or even the Windows terminal that normally runs a DOS-like shell.

