On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Garrett D'Amore 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.

Linux net-tools, FreeBSD, DragonFly, and OpenBSD versions of ifconfig 
print all interfaces with no arguments (-a is default).

 Jeremy C. Reed