Bash keymaps

An experienced Linuxer will see that the changes we made to .inputrc has created a problem. We set <control>-s to it's WordStar meaning. But the Linux terminal uses <control>-s to send the "stop" signal. Pressing <control>-s freezes the terminal until you type <control>-q, the "start" signal.

The easiest way to fix this is to tell the terminal to use a different "stop" key. To reassign "stop" to <control>-p, type the following line (and put it in your .bashrc to make it permanent):

stty stop '^p'

You can prove this works by pressing <control>-p then <control>-q. It's also a good idea to check your terminal configuration -- especially if you change other keys with .inputrc. Type:

stty -a

This will display your terminal settings. If you reassigned the "stop" key as shown above, you should see "stop = ^P".