Indeed, If I comment out all mentions of HISTSIZE and HISTFILESIZE in my .bashrc and .profile I get
$ wc -l .bash_history 500 .bash_history (after I shorted it to 490 lines and did some activity). All right, that means we should read our .bashrc carefully. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to bash in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1340511 Title: man page contains wrong default history size Status in “bash” package in Ubuntu: Invalid Bug description: man page contains wrong default history size Steps to reproduce: 1. $ man bash 2. Search for HISTSIZE (press / then type HISTSIZE and press ENTER) Actual result: Man page contains the text: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTSIZE The number of commands to remember in the command history (see HISTORY below). The default value is 500. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Expected result The default value is 2000. Additional information: $ wc -l ~/.bash_history 2000 /home/user/.bash_history $ grep HISTFILESIZE ~/.bashrc HISTFILESIZE=2000 $ apt-get source bash $ cd bash-4.2/ $ grep -nr HISTFILESIZE . ./debian/skel.bashrc:20:HISTFILESIZE=2000 ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10 Package: bash 4.2-5ubuntu3 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-19.33-generic 3.11.10.5 Uname: Linux 3.11.0-19-generic i686 ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2 Architecture: i386 Date: Fri Jul 11 11:41:58 2014 InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-02-18 (143 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Beta i386 (20130926) MarkForUpload: True SourcePackage: bash UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bash/+bug/1340511/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp