Re: Bash question/problem.

[Mitch Blevins <mblevin@debian.org>]

Jim Lynch wrote:
> I'v been fighting a bash problem since I first installed bo.  I figured
> it was a bug in bash, but I've now upgraded (partially) to hamm and I've
> still got it.  I'm running 
> 
> ii  bash            2.01.1-4       The GNU Bourne Again SHell
> 
> I'm trying to get my command recall to work in vi mode for root.  When I
> hit the up arrow on the keyboard, it does recall the line, but I can't
> edit it.  The right and left keys don't move, but beep at me.  The hjkl
> keys just insert hjkl into the file.  Thinking it was in an edit mode, I
> tried the ESC key followed by h, j, k or l.  Nope, just beeped at me. 
> I've tried setting my FCEDIT=vi, set -o vi, EDITOR=vi.  Nothing seems to
> work.  I'm at my wits end on this.  If I invoke bash as a normal user (I
> use tcsh normally) the arrow keys don't work, but ESC-k recalls previous
> lines (and ESC-j does as expected) and I can move around on the line
> with h and l.  The i key does inserts, cw changes a word, r and R work
> fine, etc.  So bash knows how, but doesn't work right for root.  
> 
> Actually neither work quite the way I want them to.  I'd like for the
> arrow keys to work and the intraline editing.  
> 
> Can anyone point me in the right direction?

I had some problems with bash when the shell was invoked thru the symlink
/bin/sh rather than explicitly with /bin/bash.
Maybe that is the problem.
set -o vi  # works for me
echo "set editing-mode vi" >> ~/.inputrc  # is what I use

-Mitch