Manual

3. Shell prompt (invite)

The shell's invite (for bash, in this case) appears as follows:

A standard shell invite:

[jane@name_machine /home/jane]$

By default, the $ (dollar) symbol is used at the end of the invite for any connection initiated by ordinary users. When the connection is established by the superuser (root), the symbol used at the end of the invite is then the # (number sign) symbol.

A root shell invite:

[root@name_machine /root]#