Re: Display problem
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On Wednesday, November 28 at 11:33 AM, quoth Steve:
> I haven't compiled mutt, but
>
> aptitude install mutt
>
> Here is the output of mutt -v :
>
> System: Linux 2.6.18-5-amd64 (x86_64) [using ncurses 5.5] [using
> libidn 0.6.5 (compiled with 0.6.5)]
Hmm, okay. Ubuntu, I'm guessing?
>> Ncurses must then send the sequence of bytes necessary to display
>> what mutt wants to the terminal. Since there is no terminal, ssh
>> intercepts this output, and forwards it to your remote application.
>
> Which is either konsole or puTTy ?
Right. Well, I was thinking PuTTy. In the case of Konsole, obviously
ssh isn't involved.
>> People writing new terminal applications (e.g. putty) know this,
>> and while they like adding features, generally they want their
>> terminal to work sooner than later, so they tend to emulate older
>> terminals (e.g. xterm).
>
> ok but I'm not using any weird terminals, only well known ones.
True, but that doesn't always mean bliss. :)
> I'll try this as soon as I get out of mutt. What do you mean with
> 'configurable emulation modes' ? I think I don't understand very
> well what emulation' means ...
Ah, well... so, since folks have begun to recognize that what we don't
need is MORE unique terminals with their own reinvention of the "how
to draw things to the terminal" wheel, most often newer terminals
(e.g. Konsole) will accept the same commands as older terminals (e.g.
xterm). When they do this it's called "emulation" for the simple
reason that Konsole isn't actually an xterm, but rather it's just
attempting to behave like one. The problem, however, is that it's
usually an incomplete or inaccurate emulation, and it may behave
*slightly* differently in *some* situations, which leads to problems
for programs like mutt that really put terminals through their paces.
And, unfortunately, this usually doesn't lead to the new terminals
*correcting* their behavior, but more often it just leads to ncurses
developing yet another terminal description to try and work
with/around the weirdness.
Anyway, "configurable emulation modes" is when a terminal program
gives you a choice of terminals to emulate. For example, it could ask
"do you want me to behave like an xterm? or like a vt100 console? or
like an rxvt terminal?" Different modes may be more or less accurate
(and more or less complete), leading to some duplication of
capability. In any case, whatever you tell your terminal to behave
like, that's what you need to set in your TERM envariable.
Make sense?
>>> In putty, Connection -> Data is currently set to xterm. I tried
>>> several different values found in the litterature (uxterm, putty,
>>> linuxi ..) and still the same problem..
>>
>> Changing the setting in Connection->Data only changes what PuTTy
>> *claims* to be, not what it actually behaves like (don't you love how
>> those are separate settings?).
>
> Are you telling me that any settings in puTTy are useless or by any
> means for my particular problem ?
No... I'm telling you that settings in puTTy affect what TERM setting
is most accurate.
>> in Window->Colours you get to change whether it supports 256 colors
>> or not, and so forth.
>
> Here I have (default values) :
>
> Allow terminal to specify ANSI colours
> Allow terminal to use xterm 256-color mode
> Bolded text is a different colour
My point is that if you allow 256 colors, the most accurate TERM
setting is 'xterm-256color' (or something along those lines), whereas
if you didn't, the most accurate setting would be 'xterm' or maybe
'xterm-16color'.
> Thanks a lot Kyle for your extended explanations. I'll play around
> with the TERM variable and see if I have more success. I'll let you
> know as I'll let the debian-user-french list know also since a lot
> of people there are experiencing the same problem.
Also try Gary's suggestion of running xterm instead of Konsole, just
to see if you get the same display problems. If you don't, then that's
useful information. If you get the same problems, that's also useful
(and means we're trouble-shooting in the wrong direction).
~Kyle
- --
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power
attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other
things than power.
-- David Brin
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