trouble with the way man pages are displayed

win32sux · 04-10-2006, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien_Hominid

That's strange. I have TERM set as xterm and everything works normally in xterm (man pages too). Just tried for curiosity.

yeah, who knows what i've done to get myself into these circumstances...

... i'm sure that if i re-installed slackware the issue would be resolved, but that's not really an option for me right now... i much rather keep looking into this whenever i can to see if i can eventually figure-out exactly why this happened to me...

PS: this couldn't have anything to do with libreadline, right?? just wondering...

Alien_Hominid · 04-10-2006, 01:34 PM

Ok, just removed readline. No difference. Should I reboot? It is working normally after unset TERM.
The only error: terminal is not working functionally but man pages are correct. And the strangest thing that it only affects Gnome terminal not xterm.

edavis · 04-10-2006, 01:41 PM

ah wow, Environment variables.. completely slipped my mind.

Glad you got it to work man, keep us updated if you ever find out how you got it to not display properly in the first place.

win32sux · 04-10-2006, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien_Hominid

Ok, just removed readline. No difference. Should I reboot? It is working normally after unset TERM.
The only error: terminal is not working functionally but man pages are correct. And the strangest thing that it only affects Gnome terminal not xterm.

what readline version are you using?? i compiled the 5.1 from -current, replacing the 4.3 from -10.2... by looking at the -current changelog i can see that patrick recompiled a lot of stuff at the time he upgraded readline, but i can't tell which particular packages where the ones that *needed* a recompile before this day:

Quote:

Thu Feb 16 14:01:26 CST 2006
OK, I think I have everything that used libreadline.so.4 recompiled

anyways, it was just a hunch... i mean, it's called "readline" and well the problem i have with the man pages seems like less or groff or whatever was having problems "reading the lines" properly so i figured it *might* have something to do...

win32sux · 04-10-2006, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edavis

Glad you got it to work man, keep us updated if you ever find out how you got it to not display properly in the first place.

you can count on it...

Alien_Hominid · 04-10-2006, 01:50 PM

I'm using readline from current without recompile.

win32sux · 04-10-2006, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien_Hominid

I'm using readline from current (no recompile).

but like, on 10.2?? or are you using -current entirely??

cuz i'm on a 10.2, but i've recompiled the hell out of this thing so a lot of my versions are equal to what's in -current even though i haven't downloaded any binaries from -current...

Alien_Hominid · 04-10-2006, 01:59 PM

Most packages are from current except the most vital ones like aaa_base, aaa_elflibs, alsa, kernel headers and X (it's from dropline because it gives me more fps than the Slackware ones).

Alien_Hominid · 04-10-2006, 02:07 PM

Just rebooted. Readline does not affect anything (everything works normally), unsetting TERM gives only warning. Your problem is not here.

kodon · 04-10-2006, 02:40 PM

checked to see if anything is wrong with the termcap?

win32sux · 04-10-2006, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alien_Hominid

Just rebooted. Readline does not affect anything (everything works normally), unsetting TERM gives only warning. Your problem is not here.

thanks for that feedback...

Quote:

Originally Posted by kodon

checked to see if anything is wrong with the termcap?

please elaborate... how do i check that??

kodon · 04-10-2006, 04:33 PM

i'm not positive on the correct way to debug it,
but this is the stock slack xterm settings in termcap.

Code:

# Entry for an xterm. Insert mode has been disabled.
vs|xterm|xterm-color|vs100|xterm terminal emulator (X Window System):\
	:am:bs:mi@:km:co#80:li#55:\
	:im@:ei@:\
	:ct=\E[3k:ue=\E[m:\
	:is=\E[m\E[?1l\E>:\
	:rs=\E[m\E[?1l\E>:\
	:eA=\E)0:as=^N:ae=^O:ac=aaffggjjkkllmmnnooqqssttuuvvwwxx:\
	:kI=\E[2~:kD=\177:kP=\E[5~:kN=\E[6~:\
	:k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\
	:k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:k0=\E[21~:\
	:F1=\E[23~:F2=\E[24~:\
	:kh=\E[H:kH=\EOw:\
	:ks=:ke=:\
	:te=\E[2J\E[?47l\E8:ti=\E7\E[?47h:\
	:tc=vt-generic:

# Some other entries for the same xterm.
v2|xterms|vs100s|xterm small window:\
	:co#80:li#24:tc=xterm:
vb|xterm-bold|xterm with bold instead of underline:\
	:us=\E[1m:tc=xterm:
vi|xterm-ins|xterm with insert mode:\
	:mi:im=\E[4h:ei=\E[4l:tc=xterm:

the man page goes over some of the abbreviations.
you can also use `infocmp` to determine the settings from terminfo.
also, if man is the only command effected...maybe something in man.conf?
i did see some results similar to this behaviour in searches from users who had switched their encoding or such.

other interesting reads:
/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO
/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/Text-Terminal-HOWTO

/bin/bash · 04-10-2006, 10:15 PM

You should be able to set the $TERM variable in /etc/profile file.

win32sux · 04-13-2006, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by /bin/bash

You should be able to set the $TERM variable in /etc/profile file.

yeah, that's actually one of the first things i looked at... but it was already set to "linux" there... either way, i still haven't figured this thing out, and i'm noticing some weird behavior with my back key and some other stuff when i'm in less...

i don't trust my install anymore (not just for the reason posted on this thread), i really did put it through hell with all my upgrades and recompiles of everything in sight... so as soon as i have a window of opportunity i will be doing a re-install of slack 10.2... after i install all the official patches, i will proceed to be much more conservative when it comes to upgrading my stuff... i look forward to having a stable install as i had before i was infected by the upgrading/recompiling madness...