Linux shell "auto complete"?

a year ago by Fuck u/spez to c/linux4noobs

I'm moving away from Windows (yay!) and need to bring a few features with me. Microsoft added this auto complete feature to PowerShell recently and I need something similar:

I found this package which is helpful, but it requires you to hit tab before you get a list of suggested commands: https://wiki.debian.org/Add%20Bash%20Completion

Do I need a different shell entirely? I'm using bash on Debian now.

BastingChemina 16 points a year ago

Use fish as your command line shell, it's doing exactly that and way more.

It's so intuitive and useful that I forgot that it was not part of the standard shell.

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splendoruranium 4 points a year ago

It... it never occurred to me to use a different shell. Hm. Maybe I should.

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Fuck_u_spez_ 2 points a year ago

Installed. Thanks!

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BenPranklin 11 points a year ago

Definitely doable with zsh plugins. There are some options for bash like this but ive never used them

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Petter1 11 points a year ago

I recommend starship in combination with fish

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Botzo 9 points a year ago

I've not encountered this for bash.

The usual recommendation is to use Ctrl+r and do lookups when you need them.

Auto-suggestions are built into the fish shell and easily added to zsh. I haven't explored beyond those in a long time.

I hesitate to recommend changing shells for a newbie, but plenty of distros are using alternatives out of the box (usually zsh).

The typical journey for a newbie power user is a switch to zsh and an installation of oh-my-zsh, and then you can install zsh-autosuggestions as a plugin.

I wouldn't recommend fish shell to you yet, but only because you're new enough on your journey to be copy-pasting and fish isn't posix compliant which could throw you off occasionally. (This will probably bait some fish fanatics).

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Ephera 6 points a year ago

As a fish fanatic, I agree completely.

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taaz 8 points a year ago

Tab completion is the thing on linux, you can probably get something similar with zsh and it's plugins, maybe with fish too.

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Ephera 9 points a year ago

Fish has it built-in.

It is, after all, a command line shell for the 90s.

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A_norny_mousse 5 points a year ago

Are you sure you cannot get used to the double-Tab?

It has everything you ask for and more; except for the visual in your screenshot.

If the answer really is No, you'll have to move away from bash for interactive shells.

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ephos 2 points a year ago

You could be a mad lad like me and run PowerShell on Linux and as long as you have the PSReadline module you'll get this autocomplete. As others mentioned fish is also a great shell and I think with oh-my-bash and oh-my-zsh bash and zsh can do this as well.

I don't know if it has it but Nushell might also have something similar and feel a bit more natural coming from pwsh.

tldr; You can stick with pwsh or have tons of alternative options!

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magic_lobster_party 2 points a year ago

Is Ctrl+R good enough for you? I use it all the time.

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FizzyOrange 1 point a year ago

Stock ctrl-r is kinda shit but you can make it a lot better with McFly or Atuin.

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