You have been subscribed to a public bug: (previously discussed at http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/4972/ )
In some situations, the terminal prompt can become corrupted in such a way that it is unreadable, and nearly unusable. One example of this is https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/aptitude/+bug/88987 , where an application caused the user's terminal to change to random kanji characters. An easy way to see it for yourself, and what is probably the most common occurrence: 1- Find a binary executable 2- run 'cat' on it. Now try typing in other commands, and see how the prompt's characters are messed up. A workaround fix can be used by typing 'reset'. We shouldn't assume the user knows that, and even if they do, they shouldn't have to use it. Given that the command line is a powerful and mostly simple tool, and commonly used in tutorials, guides, and troubleshooting assistance throughout the ubuntu community, and linux in general, a user using a buggy program, 'cat'ing the wrong file, or doing whatever else should not cause this to happen. I'm using 8.10, but I've tested this in tilda, gnome-terminal, and a tty, and it seems to be universal. For comparison, I've tested the cmd prompt in XP, and it does not have this problem. I'm not sure of the situation in OS X. I'm not sure if the proper way to cure this would be to prevent the terminal from allowing this to happen in the first place (I have a feeling this would cause output from some programs to be messed up themselves), or have the terminal detect when this has happened when the user is at a prompt, and reset itself (which seems hackish at best) n.b.; someone on Brainstorm mentioned this possibly being exploitable, but the best results I can find on google return that as the first result. I don't want to rule it out, but I haven't marked it as a security flaw because Google Knows Everything (until proven wrong... at which point, google learns it.) ** Affects: gnome-terminal (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- Terminal input lines can become corrupted. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/312494 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to gnome-terminal in ubuntu. -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
