Bash history navigation keys should be enabled in the config

[Alexander Kabakow]

Default bash shell setup should allow history navigation with page up and page down keys.
Default Gentoo /etc/inputrc do this.

There are bugs referencing this problem: #103986, #89235
By the way #103986 is almost five years old

Dear Matthias Klose,
Please apply this patch to the Precise Pangolin version package.

As far I see patch is working for my bash instance

Regards, Alex

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Alexander Kabakow (alexzak)]

I tested this patch on windows.
It works. I used MSys/MinGW environment that comes with windows version of git

By the way: forward-search-history is completely different feature from history-search-forward. They are just different

So why it is good to have this feature enabled by default:
* Ubuntu - Linux for Human Beings, so it is must have friendly default configurations
* Proposed configuration is well tested: Gentoo Linux have this feature enabled for years
* Proposed configuration works even in Windows
* New users may found this keystrokes easy to learn
* Part of bash users are moving to zsh because they don't now how to enable this feature

Here is blog post http://www.electrictoolbox.com/pageup-history-auto-completion-bash-shell/
Author of post describes how history-search-backward/history-search-forward features works

So. For example you have history:
* ssh host-a
* cd ~/tmp/some
* mkdir test
* cd test
* vim host-a.conf
* ssh host-b
* ls
* cd ~/projects/kde-base
* make

You want to connect by ssh to host-a now
You can:
* Type ssh and press PageUp two times
* Type whole command by hands
* Press up arrow 8 times
* Use reverse search (C-r) supplying 'host-a' as params (It fails when it founds vim host-a.conf)

[Alexander Kabakow (alexzak)]

Here is Idea #5826: Enable "history-search" with Page-Up/Down in /etc/inputrc by default
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5826/

it is dated as 27 Mar 08

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Stanislav German-Evtushenko (giner)]

Yes, I've been waiting this for many years! Would be so great to enable history search by default. This is a must have feature for any linux server and I don't understand why this is not enabled yet.