Odd backspace issue: only happens with konsole+remote gnu screen
 

Hi all,

I'm running into an odd issue where the backspace key works as the delete key when I do the following:

1. open konsole,
2. ssh to a remote host, and
3. start gnu screen there.

In other words, it works fine locally inside or outside screen. It also works fine if I do the steps above in xterm.

I'm running ubuntu 9.10, but kde 4.3.2 off the launchpad kde ppa repo.

It's quite possibly one of the latest kde updates did this, but I can't find anything relevant in the apt log.

Cheers.

Greetingz!

This may depend on the shell being used on the remote host. The most common side effect is that you hit the "Delete" key and get a Control Character of some kind ( ^? or ^H ), rather than have it actually delete something.

Assuming you are getting a "^?" or "^H" when you hit the "delete" key, there's a quick fix and a long term solution;

The quick fix
Type the following after you login to the remote server. This will be good for the current "session" only.
(NOTE: You will have to substitute the Control Character listed below with whatever has been popping up when you hit the "delete" key.)

stty erase "^?"

or

ERASE="^?" ; export ERASE

Long Term Fix

In order for this to work, you will have to determine what shell you're using on the remote server.
You can do this by checking one of the following;

1) Your /etc/passwd entry for your account on the remote server.
2) The value of the "SHELL" environment variable in your current session on the remote server.
3) The output from a regular "ps" while on the remote server.

Once you know what shell you're running, you can update the shell's environment file.

bash = ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile
ksh = ~/.profile and/or ~/.kshrc
sh = ~/.profile

You will have to modify the shell's environment file so that it runs one of the commands from the Quick Fix above.

And as always, make sure to create a backup copy of whatever file you modify!

Hope this helps! (if it does, click the blue thumbs-up in the right-hand corner of this post)

Hi xeleema,

I actually found out what was causing the problem - at some point I was playing with things and changed $TERM from 'xterm' to 'xterm-color', which seems to have somehow thrown the _remote_ gnu screen off the track. :-)

I suppose the real solution would lie in somewhere in termcap, but the quick fix obviously was just reverting back to 'xterm'.

Still thanks for the detailed response and thumbs up for the spirit! :-)
Happy Holidays.

Ah! Okay, thanks for the follow-up!

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to you and yours!