Owen:
[...] I still think that these commands are a little hidden from the end user who may find the number of things in a linux box already overwelming so why sould not the home and end keys on a standard PC keyboard be mapped for a begginer (or even someone with experiance) even if there is anouther more standard way.
Of course! We should ignore the fact that there is already a standard and simple way of accessing these features and provide absolute compatibility with one other operating system's command line! We should map the F-keys to copy one character or a run of characters from the previous shell entry and abandon the shell history too!
Sorry for the sarcasm, but feeping creaturism annoys me. We already have a ferpectly pine way to do this, documented copiously in the manual pages, so why duplicate it? Surely mapping keys which only exist on some keyboards is a user choice, so don't be surprised if you have to make an active choice to do it. It's "Debian GNU/Linux" not (and IMO should not be) "Debian Linux for Windows Users".
It's different, but it's not wrong. Surely any experienced user would skim the manual? ;-)
MJR