RH8, Unicode Font and Term issues with Midnight Commander under remote console
 

Hi,

I just installed Redhat 8.0 with a very basic setup, no X or gui packages, just mysql and ftp daemons.

Midnight Commander displays fine on the main Linux console, showing ANSI lines and colors okay. However when I remote console in over SSH using SecureCRT i get a really bad gibberish display.

I tracked that down to the unicode update to Redhat 8.0 and followed the general advice to update my LANG enviroment variable to C. However whilst this gets rid of the ugly characters it replaces them with some nasty color blocks which doesn't look that much nicer. I managed to get it looking normal by updating my TERM variable to dtterm. I no longer have working F1 to F4 keys but everything renders correctly.

I read that you were not supposed to mess with the TERM variable as a general rule. So I also tried changing all the emulation and font settings in SecureCRT to get rid of the blocks and show the lines. This didn't have any effect. The only solution I found was to run MC using the -a flag but this is not something I want to do everytime I use it.

Under RH7.2 I never had this problem (it was a fuller installation mind). Are there any packages or programs that I could be missing that could help or is this just the way it is under RH8.0? Are there any other TERM types that might have the correct display and key mappings? I figure there is something in the termcap I could change but I have no idea what or how to do it :)

Thanks,

Mule.

Hi,

I fixed my own problem :) Now I am a newbie so please let me know if this is a bad solution.

Anywayz I had already done the /etc/sysconfig/i18n changes and the LANG C update but Midnight Commander was still not showing the correct ANSI lines.

I updated my /etc/termcap file and copied the 'linux|linux console:\' entry to one with a different name. I them copied the following lines from the 'dtterm' entry:

:ac=``aaffggjjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~:\
:ae=^O:as=^N:\

You can look up the definitions for these in the man termcap file.

I then compiled the termcap source into a terminfo database useing tic.

Voila, after updating my .cshrc files to set my term to the new one I had created and sourcing it, everything finally renders correctly and my function keys work again! wheee :)

Mule.