Shell Programming and Scripting

Though longer than some other solutions, this will be much faster because it doesn't use any external commands other than hostname:

Code:

hostname=$(hostname)
temp=${hostname#????}
echo ${hostname%"$temp"}

But it is also possible that your shell already has the output of hostname in the variable $HOSTNAME (bash does), and you don't need any external command:

Code:

temp=${HOSTNAME#????}
echo ${HOSTNAME%"$temp"}