Arrows don't work in terminal

SAZMan · 09-19-2006, 08:34 PM

I have Debian etch installed twice on my hard drive. In the first one I did, the page up, page down and arrow buttons do not work in the terminal. I have to hit "Enter" to move down a line (like when I am reading a man page). In the second partition, all of the buttons work just fine. The only difference is that I have KDE and GNOME on the second partition, and only GNOME on the first. The Kernel is the same (2.6.16-2-686). The problem occurs in GNOME terminal, aterm and xterm. Any ideas?

zulfilee · 09-20-2006, 03:21 AM

Try this

echo $TERM

Check the terminal type and try with some std terminal options

export TERM=xterm
export TERM=linux

SAZMan · 09-20-2006, 06:40 PM

Thanks for the response. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I'm really confused. I've tried reinstalling terminals with no resolution. Is there some configuration file I'm missing?

SAZMan · 09-27-2006, 10:17 PM

Bumping, as I still have the problem...

rickh · 09-27-2006, 11:09 PM

Strange problem. I've never seen it. Why not try updating the kernel. Etch now has 2.6.17-2

SAZMan · 09-28-2006, 11:04 AM

Could it have to do with the way my keyboard is mapped? Would that change with a newer kernel or is that something I can reconfigure on my own? It just seems strange that the two installs are otherwise similar with this one glaring difference.

rickh · 09-28-2006, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Could it have to do with the way my keyboard is mapped?

Is this section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf the same on both installations?

Code:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Generic Keyboard"
        Driver          "kbd"
        Option          "CoreKeyboard"
        Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
        Option          "XkbModel"      "pc104"
        Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
EndSection

ntubski · 09-28-2006, 12:17 PM

It could also be an inputrc thing, do you have these lines in /etc/inputrc?

Code:

# allow the use of the Home/End keys
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line

# allow the use of the Delete/Insert keys
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[2~": quoted-insert

# mappings for "page up" and "page down" to step to the beginning/end
# of the history
# "\e[5~": beginning-of-history
# "\e[6~": end-of-history

# alternate mappings for "page up" and "page down" to search the history
# "\e[5~": history-search-backward
# "\e[6~": history-search-forward

# mappings for Ctrl-left-arrow and Ctrl-right-arrow for word moving
"\e[1;5C": forward-word
"\e[1;5D": backward-word
"\e[5C": forward-word
"\e[5D": backward-word
"\e\e[C": forward-word
"\e\e[D": backward-word

SAZMan · 09-28-2006, 11:07 PM

Sigh. I tried a new kernel with no luck. My xorg.conf and inputrc files look fine as well. I did find a command called xmodmap, but I don't know how to use it or if it will help. Of note, the buttons in question work for aptitude, just not at the command line. Strange.

SAZMan · 09-29-2006, 05:55 PM

I installed "less" Now all is well. Thanks for everyone's help.