TERM=xterm problem with aterm, konsole, xterm, etc..

Message

imbezol · Post by **imbezol** » Sat Mar 05, 2005 9:22 pm

Using any of the many xterm window console programs if my TERM is set to xterm I have issues with things like man file.

http://imbezol.criticaldamage.com/misc/xtermfugged.png

Notice how the bold characters get smashed up next to the character to the right of them.

If I export TERM=xterm-color the problem goes away.

Now I know I can change my .bashrc or something to bandaid the problem but I'm not looking for those kind of answers.

I'd like to figure out what the exact problem is so I can fix it across the many gentoo boxes I have that all exhibit this same behaviour. If you have any idea where to start looking or who to talk to it'd be appreciated.

Thanks,
imbezol

imbezol · Post by **imbezol** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:33 am

A little more info..

I noticed when I ssh to another box using the same terminal that has problems and then 'man bash' on that system it works properly. Then I tried sshing to localhost and runnig 'man bash' and it works that way too. I'm at a loss for why it doesn't work normally.

mascanho · Post by **mascanho** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:24 pm

hum ... unicode problems ??
Have you cheked your use ?
do you have Freetype installed ?

imbezol · Post by **imbezol** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 7:44 pm

USE="3dnow X aalib alsa apache2 apm atm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bonobo cdparanoia cdr crypt cups curl dba dhcp directfb divx4linux dvb dvd dvdread emboss encode esd ethereal evo f77 fam fbcon flac flash fltk fluidsynth font-server foomaticdb fortran freetds gb gd gdbm ggi gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gps gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imagemagick imap imlib ipv6 jack java javascript joystick jpeg junit kde lcms libcaca libg++ libwww live mad maildir mikmod mmx motif mozilla moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mozsvg mp3 mpeg mppe-mppc mysql nas ncurses net network nptl nptlonly nvidia oav odbc offensive oggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl php png portaudio ppds python qt quicktime readline rtc ruby samba scanner sdl skey slang sndfile snmp spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb v4l v4l2 vim-with-x x86 xfs xine xinerama xml xml2 xmms xosd xprint xv xvid zlib"

* media-libs/freetype
Latest version available: 2.1.9-r1
Latest version installed: 2.1.9-r1

Not sure what you mean by a unicode problem.

mascanho · Post by **mascanho** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 11:16 pm

damn, what a huge USE , try compiling aterm again with simple USE flags , in fact try with aterm default USE flags to see what you get, and then if it still goes wrong try emerging freetype again

Sometimes too many USE flags makes your system weird

Fnordulicious · Post by **Fnordulicious** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:33 am

I'm having the same problem. I've fiddled with USE flags and I can't figure it out. But I've narrowed down the problem to a couple of pieces of software: less, ncurses, and xterm. Ncurses provides the terminfo library which gives the terminal characteristics used by programs like vi and less. Xterm includes its own terminfo entry which replaces the default terminfo entry for an xterm. And less is using something in the terminfo description from either xterm or the default one from ncurses which is being incorrectly interpreted to produce that mangling.

I'm trying different solutions to solve the problem. It's a pain because *everything* depends on xterm and ncurses, so they're hard to remove and reinstall.

Fnordulicious · Post by **Fnordulicious** » Mon May 02, 2005 3:44 am

I've installed the latest XTerm (200) and that didn't fix it. I reinstalled ncurses and now things seem to work. My conclusion is that the XTerm supplied terminfo entry is borken somehow. I'll diff them to see if there's anything obvious, but I'm not a terminfo wizard so I'm not likely to figure out the problem without a lot of research.

This is an interesting bug because it should be reported to one of the upstream maintainers. I just don't know who's at fault -- XTerm or ncurses. And I have the impression that both are maintained by the same people, aren't they?