apt-get autocomplete package name is broken

At some moment

apt-get install

autocomplete was broken

It was very useful to me to see packages name with Tab press

How to repair this autocomplete?

As stated in the comments to the other answer, first make sure that bash-completion is installed:

sudo apt-get install bash-completion

and apparently for @diapir, it helped to reinstall it:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall bash-completion

However, for me, the problem was not that bash-completion was not installed or broken, the problem was that I had accidently deleted my .bashrc file. You can get a new one by copying it from /etc/skel:

cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/

Type the following command:

sudo -H gedit /etc/bash.bashrc

Look for these lines:

# enable bash completion in interactive shells
# if ! shopt -oq posix; then
#  if [ -f /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
#    . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
#  elif [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
#    . /etc/bash_completion
#  fi
# fi

Uncomment some lines, to make it look like this:

# enable bash completion in interactive shells
if ! shopt -oq posix; then
  if [ -f /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion ]; then
    . /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion
  elif [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
    . /etc/bash_completion
  fi
fi

Save, close terminal, then reopen it.

I have this issue after installing 13.04, and that's how I resolve it.

Note that output of this command:

apt-config dump | grep "Dir::Cache"

Should be something like this:

Dir::Cache "var/cache/apt";
Dir::Cache::archives "archives/";
Dir::Cache::srcpkgcache "srcpkgcache.bin";
Dir::Cache::pkgcache "pkgcache.bin";

If value of Dir::Cache::pkgcache is empty, apt will not be able to auto complete package names. Take a look at your /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ files and search for this key to be sure that it's not set to empty string.

grep -r pkgcache /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/

Also take a look at this answer.

Download the latest stable release from http://bash-completion.alioth.debian.org/

./configure
make
sudo make install

insert

if [ -f /etc/bash_completion ]; then
  . /etc/bash_completion
fi

to ~/.bashrc

apt-get autocomplete package name is broken

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