Bash has a number of bugs in it that cause it to not behave the way it is expected at times. Fix this behaviour with the following patch: patch -Np1 -i ../bash-&bash-patch-version;.patch Prepare Bash for compilation: ./configure --prefix=/usr --bindir=/bin Compile the package: make This package has a test suite available which can perform a number of checks to ensure it built correctly. Should you choose to run it, the following command will do so: make tests Install the package: make install And reload the newly compiled bash program: exec /bin/bash --login +h