I am new here, and just have one linode, so this may be my goof.

It appears the default Ubuntu 10.04 image did not have the useful package bash-completion installed.

Anyone else notice this? If this is the case, can it be added to the default image?

It is incredibly useful for doing things like

sudo apt-get install php[TAB]

Thanks reaktor! I've been wondering why it was my only Ubuntu machine that tab completion did not work on. I just installed it and it's like my other machines. Cool.

The images are stripped to the bone, which they should be. I'm happy I didn't have to uninstall a bunch of default installed stuff.

(when I installed it at least) the Debian distro doesn't even have "less"

glg: to each his/her own philosophy. I run Ubuntu 10.04 Server in a VM on my home machine set to 360 Meg of RAM and it runs fine.

It seems like with my Linode, when I first installed it I had to keep hunting for packages to install to make it act like my other Ubuntu machines.

I wonder if there is a list provided by Linode showing what has been stripped from a normal Server distribution so we can easily install back what we deem necessary?

The perfect job for a stack script, which would let you deploy a more complete Ubuntu Server box right off the bat.

It's not a Linode-custom thing; Ubuntu specifies the packages to be installed in this situation. "apt-cache showpkg ubuntu-minimal" will show you that list.

The next step up, I believe, is ubuntu-standard. So, try "apt-get install ubuntu-standard" should things seem a little too lean.

^Ok I see cool. Thanks!

That would imply that Ubuntu removed the package themselves in 10.04, since it was definitely included in previous versions of Ubuntu Server.

Ubuntu Server != Ubuntu Minimal

And admittedly, nowhere does Linode claim that it's Ubuntu Server.

I'm confused. Who removed the bash-completion package?

nobody. the linode base is ubuntu-minimal which does not include that package.

A standard Debian install doesn't include "less". It's only installed by the Debian installer if you check the "standard" checkbox in tasksel - but it's not in unattended or debootstrap installs.

less is one of the first things I usually install on a new Debian box, along with vim (vim-full) to replace the barebones vim version it comes with.

Just do this as root on your recently deployed Ubuntu 10.04 LTS image:

apt-get install bash-completion
source /etc/bash_completion

And... you're done, now TAB completion works just found this googling around since i wanted to have this enabled too.

Regards!

Adrian