Hi all - I suspect that this topic has been breached (many times) before, but ...
With 2 new hamm installations (one on a Pentium, one on an Alpha), the default backspace/delete configuration is annoying. At least it seems to be consistant between the two machines... but consistantly annoying isn't There are numberous bug reports in ncurses-base about backspace problems, but they are all over 200 days old, and none of them seemed to be resolved very well. And for that matter, I'm not convinced that the problem is entirely in ncurses-base. *************************************************************************** Anyway, I ran some tests: 1) I ran a number of programs (emacs, info, less, ftp) in various terminals (console, xterm (2x), kterm), and tested various key responses ( <--, Delete, ctrl-H, arrow keys, emacs keys). The results are quite long, so I didn't want to post them here, but you can view them at http://nakajima-www.cs.titech.ac.jp/~k-squire/bs.txt. To put the results briefly, a number of terminals/programs do not seem to conform to the Debian keyboard policy. In particular, kterm is quite bad, in that it's impossible to backspace in certain situations with the default keyboard mappings (all backspaces print ^H). Also, in an xterm, at many prompts, <-- prints ^? instead of backspacing! This does not happen, however, when the xterm is logged into another hamm machine. 2) I looked at stty settings for each terminal. These results I will print here. Console: speed 38400 baud; line = 0; flush = ^U; -brkint ixoff -imaxbel -iexten xterm: speed 9600 baud; line = 0; erase = ^H; eol2 = ^O; -brkint -imaxbel xterm logged into an i386 from an alpha (both hamm): speed 38400 baud; line = 0; -brkint -imaxbel kterm: speed 9600 baud; line = 0; eol2 = ^O; -brkint -imaxbel kterm logged into an i386 from an alpha (both hamm): speed 38400 baud; line = 0; -brkint -imaxbel *************************************************************************** Side note: in /usr/X11/Xresources ! Make the backspace key generate ^? instead of ^H, per Debian keyboard ! policy. *VT100*backarrowKey: false This was installed during the hamm upgrade. If I take it out (and ignore Debian keyboard policy), things change in an xterm, though not everything was fixed. Anyway, I assume it was put in there for a reason, so I don't think it's a good idea to touch it. *************************************************************************** Fixes: ----- In particular, if I execute 'stty erase "^?"' in a xterm, everything begins to work fine (i.e. quite similarly to the console, which I think is "correct"). Also, in a kterm, if I execute 'stty erase ^H', everything begins to work again (though not in conformity with Debian keyboard policy). *************************************************************************** Questions: --------- Okay. So I can fix the problems manually. My questions: 1) How do I fix it so that the "correct" key bindings are the system default? 2) Why does xterm use the VT100 resources? Why doesn't kterm? 3) Why are the xterm/kterm stty settings different when logged into the current machine verses when logged into a remote (hamm) machine. 4) Where do I send bug reports so that I don't have to fix these problems in a default hamm system? I.e., where are the problems: ncurses-base (terminfo entries), kterm, xterm, stty, less, ftp *************************************************************************** Sorry this is so long, but the last question is the most important to me--if I knew the answer, I would have sent this information to the correct place(s) first. Any responses (other than, "gee, it works fine for me") would be appreciated. Thank you! Kevin ----- Kevin Squire [EMAIL PROTECTED] Research Student Nakajima Research Laboratory Tokyo Institute of Technology -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]