I saw your question while browsing the debian user archives. I believe you're looking for a way to control whether programs like vi and less use the alternate screen buffer (when you quit them, their output disappears, and the original contents reappear) or the normal screen buffer (just overwrite what's already there when starting and leave the screen alone when exiting.)
# you need write permission, so change to your home directory cd # decompile the system xterm capabilities infocmp xterm >xterm.dec # edit xterm.dec removing the smcup=something, and rmcup=something, entries vi xterm.dec # and make the edits # compile the modified file # this will create ~/.terminfo/x/xterm tic xterm.dec # start a new xterm and set TERM=xterm if that's not what's already # there # you should no longer have alternate screen capability, so vi, less, # etc, will just overwrite the current display Hope that helps. -- Lee Bradshaw [EMAIL PROTECTED] Texas Instruments [EMAIL PROTECTED]
