I'm using Bash on Ubuntu 9.10... $ head -1 /etc/issue ; uname -a ; bash --version Ubuntu 9.10 \n \l Linux x1 2.6.31-22-generic #67-Ubuntu SMP Sat Oct 16 18:51:35 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux GNU bash, version 4.0.33(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ...and I'm noticing that "history -a file" does not do anything if I wrote previously with "history -w file". I think this is a very serious bug that could cause loss of an important command history. I see here that it has been fixed in bash 4.2 release candidate 2... http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.bash.bug/browse_thread/thread/48152c5e8c35b743?pli=1 ...but I'm still on 4.0.33 on my main box. It gets worse. Here are two other boxes that I use a lot: Ubuntu 10.10 Linux x2 2.6.35-23-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 24 11:55:36 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux GNU bash, version 4.1.5(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. CentOS release 5.5 (Final) Linux x3 2.6.18-194.11.4.el5 #1 SMP Tue Sep 21 05:04:09 EDT 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc. How many years will pass before I get the bug fix? With CentOS I'll probably die first. Mike