Command ($ or #) line; smart completion?

[Nat Gross]

On 11/28/05, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 14:28, Nat Gross wrote:
>
> > Back in the days of MS-DOA (um, msdos), I had a little tsr (forgot
> > about *that* tla) called 4DOS that enhanced the command line
> > experience. The more I work at the linux command line, the more I miss
> > some basic functions. Ok, we have scroll back history, but how about:
> >
> > 1. Typing a partial command that exists in history, hit <F8>, and the
> > command either gets completed (if unique string), or a little menu is
> > presented.
>
> Hit control-R for an emacs-like incremental-search through history.
> There's a way to switch to vi-style but when I tried it long ago
> it lost the up/down arrow scroll through history.  Does anyone
> know if that is fixed now?
control-R! That's it! Yay!

> > 2. Any command that involves a file or directory (in the current dir)
> > can have the file/dir name auto-entered also via
> > 'partial-string+function key'.
>
> Hit <tab> to have the command line auto-filled, or just use a wildcard
> in the command if you don't need to see it first.

Hey, this thing works even without the completion pkg installed. What gives?

One more thing. How do I get the freakin DEL key to delete the char
under the cursor and the backspace key to the left of the cursor, in
Gnome? (Kde does it but I use gnome most of the time.)

Thanks;
-nat