Making terminal tab auto-complete case-insensitive on Ubuntu

This translation is machine-generated and pending review.

By default the Ubuntu terminal distinguishes between folders and files whose names start with uppercase and lowercase letters; I personally find this counterproductive and it is one of the first tweaks I make on a fresh OS installation.

For those who also don’t like a case-sensitive terminal, there is a solution that will make your life easier.

But first I should remind you that this setting is global and will affect the other users of the system!

So let’s get to it; obviously first open the terminal (ctrl + alt + t).

Create a backup

Always, always, always make a backup when you are modifying configuration files:

$ sudo cp -p /etc/inputrc /etc/_inputrc.bk

The -p flag makes the file copy preserve the permissions, owner and date.

If something goes wrong you can simply revert to the original file:

$ sudo cp /etc/_inputrc.bk /etc/inputrc

Configuring

There are other ways to edit the file; to keep things simple and avoid explaining editor-specific commands, we will use a simple command that will add the necessary configuration to the last line of the file:

$ sudo echo “set completion-ignore-case on” >> /etc/inputrc

Testing

An easy way to test is to navigate to your user folder (home) and try to navigate to the Desktop folder.

To test we need to open a new terminal so that the change is loaded:

$ cd ~ $ cd desk # Press tab $ cd Desktop # VoilĂ