[Pkg-xfce-devel] Bug#711008: Bug#711008: xfce4-terminal: changing terminal type locks up all terminals

[Yves-Alexis Perez]

control: reassign -1 libvte9

On lun., 2013-06-03 at 23:30 +0000, brian m. carlson wrote:
> Package: xfce4-terminal
> Version: 0.6.2-1
> Severity: important
> 
> Before the XFCE 4.10 upgrade, I used to have my terminal type set to
> xterm-256color in the preferences.  However, now that terminal type is
> set to xterm.  If I edit the terminal type to be xterm-256color, I get
> the following message in every terminal, and the terminal locks up and
> is unusable until I set it back:
> 
>   *** VTE ***: Failed to load terminal capabilities from '/etc/termcap'
> 
> Note that the message appears as soon as I type the first character into
> the terminal type box (that is, the "-" character).  Opening a new
> terminal allows me to type, but it ignores the Enter key, which makes it
> useless.  I am using zsh with a highly-customized configuration, but
> this worked fine before the upgrade.  I had not noticed the problem
> until now because my zsh configuration automatically forces
> xterm-256color when that TERM definition is available and the terminal
> is an xfce4-terminal.
> 
> I don't know if the message is misleading or not, but /etc/termcap does
> not exist, nor should it because Debian uses terminfo.

That's actually a vte issue. Vte doesn't support anymore to set the TERM
environment variable. You can set the emulation, but it's not the same,
messing with emulation mode can lead to really bad results, so vte now
only supports XTERM emulation mode.

http://docs.xfce.org/apps/terminal/preferences (search for “Emulation”)
has some info about that, along with
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7178 and
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=640940

For now, you can try to set TERM in your shell with something like:

----
# Enable 256 color capabilities for appropriate terminals

# Set this variable in your local shell config if you want remote
# xterms connecting to this system, to be sent 256 colors.
# This can be done in /etc/csh.cshrc, or in an earlier profile.d script.
#   SEND_256_COLORS_TO_REMOTE=1

# Terminals with any of the following set, support 256 colors (and are local)
local256="$COLORTERM$XTERM_VERSION$ROXTERM_ID$KONSOLE_DBUS_SESSION"

if [ -n "$local256" ] || [ -n "$SEND_256_COLORS_TO_REMOTE" ]; then

  case "$TERM" in
    'xterm') TERM=xterm-256color;;
    'screen') TERM=screen-256color;;
    'Eterm') TERM=Eterm-256color;;
  esac
  export TERM

  if [ -n "$TERMCAP" ] && [ "$TERM" = "screen-256color" ]; then
    TERMCAP=$(echo "$TERMCAP" | sed -e 's/Co#8/Co#256/g')
    export TERMCAP
  fi
fi

unset local256
----

Regards,
-- 
Yves-Alexis
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