Some directory names output with a strange first character.

stf92 · 05-11-2014, 03:45 AM

Hi: When I do ls on some directories in the text console (/dev/ttyN), all directory names are printed in a very odd way: the first character of the name has a vertical straight line to its left, which is one dot (pixel) wide. This happens with all dirs having permissions drwxrwxrwx or drwxrwxrwt. All these names are printed in blue and terminated by a slash. This vertical line can't be the '|' indicator output by the -F option. It is a part of the character block!

I can't post a screenshot because this is a text console (aka virtual console or virtual terminal). What can be the cause of this strange phenomenon? Cna it be a hardware failure?

ondoho · 05-11-2014, 05:00 AM

???
post terminal output (not a screenshot, just copy-paste the text).
with the command that produced it.
post the output of "alias ls".

are you not running X? meaning, a graphical user interface?

stf92 · 05-11-2014, 05:38 AM

X is running, but I've done Alt+Ctrl+F1, that is, I'm in virtual console #1.

Code:

root@local:~# cat j1.txt
root@local:/etch# ls
almacen/  debian7/  initrd/      media/  root/     srv/  var/
bin/      dev/      initrd.img@  mnt/    sbin/     sys/  vmlinuz@
boot/     etc/      lib/         opt/    selinux/  tmp/
cdrom@    home/     lost+found/  proc/   slack12/  usr/
root@local:/etch#

root@local:~# cat j2.txt 
root@local:~# alias ls
alias ls='/bin/ls $LS_OPTIONS'
root@local:~# echo $LS_OPTIONS
-F -b -T 0 --color=auto
root@local:~#

root@local:~#

The vertical line is in the tmp entry. The "t" is not actually a "t" but a "t" with a vertical line just to its left. If I do 'ls --color=never' then the output is normal.

rknichols · 05-11-2014, 09:01 AM

For an other-writable directory, the default color scheme should display the name on a green background. It seems that some problem with your video hardware or driver is just displaying a vertical line at the start of what should be a background color change. Is that background color showing up correctly when you run in a GUI terminal emulator?

stf92 · 05-11-2014, 07:29 PM

Also in the console, some file names in directory /bin are displayed in white on a red background. The fonts are correct. As for a terminal emulator in the GUI, the effect is just the same: still the vertical line to the left of the character.

The video controller is an NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000. Maybe it is broken or has the wrong driver?

rknichols · 05-11-2014, 08:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stf92

Also in the console, some file names in directory /bin are displayed in white on a red background. The fonts are correct. As for a terminal emulator in the GUI, the effect is just the same: still the vertical line to the left of the character.

The video controller is an NVidia GeForce4 MX 4000. Maybe it is broken or has the wrong driver?

White on red is the default coloring for a file with the SUID bit set in its permissions. It is common for all of the files in /bin to have something other than the normal text and background colors. You can look at the output from "dircolors -p" and the environment variable LS_COLORS to see the combinations that have been defined. If the output from ls doesn't correspond to that, perhaps the terminal type isn't being recognized correctly or there is some problem with the terminal emulators, video drivers or hardware.

In a GUI terminal emulator, are you able to set a variety of text and background colors? (If the graphic driver and hardware were not rendering colors correctly, I would think you would have noticed.)

ondoho · 05-12-2014, 01:33 AM

what rknichols said, plus:
i'm 99.9% sure this has nothing to do with your soundcard.