Control: retitle -1 screen: Automatic setting of $TERM not consistently
documented
Control: severity -1 minor
Hi Kurt,
It's not a bug, it's a feature! (SCNR) And a very old one, too, dating
back to screen 3.0. And 'TERM="screen.linux" is not known in stable'
is wrong. :-) Let me explain:
Kurt Roeckx wrote:
> When trying to connect to hosts running stable from a screen, I
> get the error that "screen.linux" is unknown.
This may happen, yes. It may also happen if you connect from a Squeeze
workstation to a Wheezy box:
It happens if you're running screen on a Linux virtual console and the
host you're starting screen on has the package ncurses-term installed
(e.g. pulled in by rxvt-unicode-256color) while the box you're ssh'ing
to hasn't.
Background: ncurses-term contains /usr/share/terminfo/s/screen.linux,
also in Squeeze. screen checks if the local host knows about
screen.$TERM and if so, uses that one. From screen/src/ChangeLog:
---snip---
Changes up to Screen 3.0 Patchlevel 7
=====================================
Better terminfo support: Screen now checks if a termcap/info
entry which the name "screen.$TERM" does exist. Look in the
"VIRTUAL TERMINAL" section of the manual for more details.
---snap---
This also means that this "feature" is already part of screen for a
very long time.
Nevertheless it's not always mentioned in the man page where you'd
expect it:
---snip---
-T term
Set the $TERM environment varible using the spcified term
as opposed to the defualt setting of screen.
[...]
In each window's environment screen opens, the $TERM variable is set
to "screen" by default.
[...]
When screen tries to figure out a terminal name for itself, it first
looks for an entry named "screen.<term>", where <term> is the contents
of your $TERM variable. If no such entry exists, screen tries "screen"
(or "screen-w" if the ter‐ minal is wide (132 cols or more)). If even
this entry cannot be found, "vt100" is used as a substitute.
---snap---
So to fix this issue for you, please install either ncurses-term on
your stable box, too, or remove it from your wheezy/sid box and the
problem should vanish.
(And yes, I had to look up this first, too. :-)
Regards, Axel
--
,''`. | Axel Beckert <a...@debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
: :' : | Debian Developer, ftp.ch.debian.org Admin
`. `' | 1024D: F067 EA27 26B9 C3FC 1486 202E C09E 1D89 9593 0EDE
`- | 4096R: 2517 B724 C5F6 CA99 5329 6E61 2FF9 CD59 6126 16B5
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
