"The process is a little complex to explain here since it is different for every shell you use. Rather I'll give you two links:
How to Change the Title of an xterm (Comprehensive instructions for many different shells) Show the current Command in your Bash window Title. A nice step by step procedure on how the author went on to do this nice effect. Makes for a good learning practice. (But bash specific)
There are a few other things to take into consideration. For a one time change common to all terminal sessions, you may want instead to simply alter Bash (if you use bash and under gnome) icon and add --title=title under Gnome."
"You could install and use xttitle (Note the doubled t in the name). I use it like this in a file sourced by my ~/.bashrc:
# from the ""xttitle(1)"" man page - put info in window title update_title() { [ $TERM = xterm -o $TERM = xterm-color ] && xttitle ""[$$] ${USER}@${HOSTNAME}:$PWD"" }
cd() { [ -z ""$*"" ] && builtin cd $HOME [ -n ""$*"" ] && builtin cd ""$*"" update_title }
