bash_completion not working, source command not found.

Question

I recently inherited a Ubuntu Hardy box that acts rather funky out-of-the-box. The first things I tried to do was edit my .bashrc profile to do some coloring and add some aliases I usually have, but then when I try to source the ~/.bashrc I get sh: source: not found and I have also noticed tabbed autocomplete is also not working at all - I believe this is called bash_completetion, but as I'm sure you can tell, I'm not an expert.

Are there any specific files I should be editing to get this basic functionality I am accustomed to out-of-the-box? and isn't it unusual for the source command to not be installed?

Answer 1

General thought process:

• Use ps to confirm you're actually using sh not bash

• confirm that /bin/bash exists and works properly (and [re]install it if it doesn't)

• use chsh to change your login shell to bash

• install the bash-completion package if it's missing

Answer 2

You should be getting bash: source: command not found (except that bash will never fail to find source, of course). If you get sh:, then you're either not running bash at all, or running bash with the flag that tells it to pretend it's the Bourne shell /bin/sh. Type bash to get a real bash, or edit the startup configuration so that it doesn't pass that flag for you (not sure where they are in Ubuntu).