By default when you use FreeBSD’s BASH shell and if you hit Home, Del, Insert keys all of them just prints ~ (some garbage is printed ). To get rid of this problem, edit /etc/profile file and define key binding.
1) Open your bash global profile file:
# vi /etc/profile
2) Add following line to it:
export INPUTRC=/usr/local/etc/inputrc
3) Close and save the file
4) Open the file /usr/local/etc/inputrc and define / modify key binding:
# vi /usr/local/etc/inputrc
5) Append following config data:
set meta-flag on set input-meta on set convert-meta off set output-meta on "\e[1~": beginning-of-line "\e[4~": end-of-line "\e[5~": beginning-of-history "\e[6~": end-of-history "\e[3~": delete-char "\e[2~": quoted-insert "\e[5C": forward-word "\e[5D": backward-word
6) Close and save the file
7) Now logout and login back again to test your new key settings.
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Hey there,
This post is kindof old but still relevant.
In freebsd 9.x I’ve had to add the following to the inputrc file to really make ctrl-arrow work:
hope that can be useful for ppl stumbling here.
Thanks alot, i got a vps with freebsd and have been hard just because this issue, now even the paste and copy from mouse works perfectly.
it works very well on bash – Solaris 10.
Thanks, but…
How to do this in (T)cshell ? I’ve no the program ‘export’.
I’m freebsd 7.1.
setenv.
Thanks a lot, that fixed the keys in bash, but there’s one more: the END key in the nano editor doesn’t work.
How would I get that going?
great!
It’s also worth noting that if you don’t have permission to edit /etc/inputrc you can at least create a .inputrc file in your home directory
WOW! Thanks – I just switched two dedicated servers from Fedora Core 4 to FreeBSD 6.1 and this was driving me crazy!!!
Here’s some more handy things to put in your /etc/profile
alias pico="nano -w"
alias slocate="locate"
alias cd..="cd .."
export EDITOR=/usr/local/bin/nano
export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc
Don’t forget the ‘ctl-v’ trick though. (I mentioned it here.) I’ve found some of those codes are different on different keyboards/machines!
BTW, it’s
“x7F”: backward-delete-char
Forget the backslash like BOK and your keyboard will be crippled off the ‘x’ key
PotatoSalad,
I am also not sure about freebsd 4.x. If you have the file just copy and use it 🙂
You can just copy /usr/compat/linux/etc/inputrc to /etc/inputrc and add “export INPUTRC=/etc/inputrc” to /etc/profile. Not sure if everyone has the /usr/compat/linux/etc/inputrc file, though. I’m on FreeBSD 6.1
And another one:
“x7F”: backward-delete-char
PS Nice hints ‘n tips on your site!