This is a post to document how to modify the keymap bindings for Mac OSX to emulate a standard linux environment. The information in this post can be found here: http://blog.macromates.com/2006/word-movement-in-terminal/.
The default movement in the terminal for Mac OSX is
b to move back a word
f to move forward a word
a to move to the start of the line
e to move to the end of the line
to me, that’s completely crazy – there is a reasonably easy way of changing this behaviour. Open Terminal, go to preferences and select the settings -> keyboard tab and add the following keybindings:
Key: cursor right
modifier: option
Action: send string to shell ->f
Key: cursor left
modifier: option
Action: send string to shell ->b
Key: cursor up
modifier: option
Action: send string to shell ->a
Key: cursor left
modifier: option
Action: send string to shell ->e
