[survey] TERM=rxvt-unicode as package default
Hello,
I am the maintainer of rxvt-unicode and wish to get more user comments
on the recent change in the package. Nowadays, it uses "rxvt-unicode" as
the TERM setting which makes curses-based applications use the new
terminfo file which is slightly different than the one from rxvt (more
and better colors, italic fonts, and should fix some rxvt bugs). That is
the setting prefered by the upstream author.
All the new features are consistenly integrated into the Debian system.
This, however, means a drawback for few users. You may remember problems
caused by xterm when it used xterm-debian as terminfo entry and someone
logged into a remote box using ssh (which silently sets the same TERM on
the remote side). This still happens nowadays with rxvt and Eterm (when
logging into older and/or non-Linux systems). This will happen again
with rxvt-unicode because the terminfo is fairly new and is not included
in the terminfo database (of ncurses) on the common Linux distributions
(not on any other Unix).
To make remote applications useable, one can add TERM=rxvt into the
.ssh/environment file on the remote host or set (and export) it on the
command line. Alternatively, one can work around a such "limitation"
easily by setting a shell alias like
alias ssh='TERM=`test "$DISPLAY" && echo xterm || echo $TERM` set'
Of course rxvt-unicode can work with applications that expect "rxvt" or
"xterm" mode, but you should expect some visibility bugs and key
incompatibilities (the famous home/end/del/backspace problems).
Personaly, I do not feel that the change to "rxvt-unicode" as default is
a real drawback - I would have to deal with such "problems" for most
remote systems I use (even for "rxvt"). But some people may see this
differently and I may change this for sarge. Therefore I wish to see
more input ;)
Eduard.
--
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Millionen CD-Rohlinge von 5,9 Millionen Nutzern mit Filmen bespielt
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