Marcin Jessa wrote:
>
>> As far as ifconfig, ifconfig behaves that way (needing -a to show all
>> interfaces) on other operating systems as well.  For example, without
>> arguments, ifconfig on Solaris shows a help message, just as on NetBSD.
>>
>> I would vote *against* changing that behavior of ifconfig.    The help
>> message for ifconfig may actually be useful to some folks.
>>     
>
> We already have ifconfig -h and man ifconfig...
> To be honest it's pretty annoying if one has to type -a when simple ifconfig
> could do the same thing.
>   

That's because you're used to "some other operating system".  Again, not
every OS does it this way.  I actually *prefer* the existing behavior.

If you don't know about "-h", you have to read a man page for it.  If
you don't have man pages, you're hosed.  (Yes, there are real systems
that don't install man pages, usually because there isn't enough disk
space.)

Its nice that some applications have a reasonable mode when no arguments
are given, for example useradd.

May I suggest an alias of the form

    alias   ifa   ifconfig -a

May be useful for you, and involves even less typing.  ;-)

    -- Garrett

-- 
Garrett D'Amore, Principal Software Engineer
Tadpole Computer / Computing Technologies Division,
General Dynamics C4 Systems
http://www.tadpolecomputer.com/
Phone: 951 325-2134  Fax: 951 325-2191