The behavior you're describing is based on your shell.
The default shell in CentOS is bash: you can confirm this by typing the following:
$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash
If it is, then you can get similar functionality to your FreeBSD shell (most likely ksh) by hitting CTRL-r. You'll see something like this:
(reverse-i-search)`':
Simply start typing and you'll get the commands you've previously run based on what you've typed.
For example, in this terminal, when I type CTRL-r s I get this:
(reverse-i-search)`s': sudo port install ruby
You can then scroll up or down with the arrow key to go through all the commands that match your search criteria (in this case, 's').
What shell are you using? – Rob Jones – 2009-09-01T21:21:33.090
2Needs to be moved to superuser. – Vineet Reynolds – 2009-09-01T21:37:29.670