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I've done an internet search for ubuntu terminal navigation keys but it didn't return anything helpful to me. In Windows (command prompt or GUI), you can go to the next or previous word by pressing Ctrlright or Ctrlleft respectively, but these keys don't work in the Ubuntu terminal.

The only navigation keys I know that work are Home and End. What are the navigation keys to quickly jump between words in Ubuntu's terminal?

CJ Dennis
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    Ctrl+Right and Ctrl+Left should navigate words by default, as defined in /etc/inputrc (in 16.04, see lines 44-50). Have you set up a custom inputrc or made any other changes to your terminal/shell setup? What version of Ubuntu are you using? – wjandrea Sep 19 '19 at 00:36
  • @wjandrea It's vanilla Ubuntu 14.04.6 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.13.0-170-generic x86_64) – CJ Dennis Sep 19 '19 at 00:37
  • Unfortunately 14.04 is no longer supported unless you pay for ESM. You need to switch to a supported release, namely 16.04, 18.04, or 19.04. See releases on the wiki. – wjandrea Sep 19 '19 at 00:41
  • @wjandrea It's the version supplied by AWS. We can't change it as far as I know. Our production servers (in fact all our servers) are running it. The question is, does 14.04 support this style of navigation, and what are the keys? – CJ Dennis Sep 19 '19 at 00:43
  • In that case, contact AWS for support. I want to help, but the relevant package has been taken down so I can't even tell you what's in the default /etc/inputrc file (/usr/share/readline/inputrc). In any case, 14.04 is not supported so it's off-topic here. – wjandrea Sep 19 '19 at 00:50
  • The bash shell supports Ctrl+Left / Ctrl+Right - provided it is in the default emacs mode with default inputrc bindings. If you've changed to a different shell (or configured bash to use vi mode) then the behavior may be different. – steeldriver Sep 19 '19 at 01:27
  • @steeldriver I don't know enough to do tricky things like that. It's vanilla Ubuntu. – CJ Dennis Sep 19 '19 at 02:09
  • You're running Ubuntu on Amazon, but your question makes it sound like you're running it locally. If you're SSH'ing into an ubuntu instance, that doesn't necessarily mean you're using ubuntu's terminal. What program are you using to access the command line? Are you accessing it from a computer running Windows? A web browser? Most likely that is the question you want to be asking. – nick carraway Sep 26 '19 at 02:19
  • @steveantwan I'm using PuTTY to SSH in. – CJ Dennis Sep 26 '19 at 07:09

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I have discovered that Altleft and Altright will jump between words in the terminal. These key combinations don't work in vi, but it's a start!

CJ Dennis
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