Bug 26890 – rxvt (2.7.8 & 2.7.10) sets TERM="xterm"; should be "rxvt"

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Reporter 2003-08-18 17:15:17 UTC]

I already reported (some of) the symptoms in bug #26750 (which accidentally 
was identified as a dupe of some other, unrelated bug), but just found out
the real problem: rxvt sets TERM="xterm"!

Because rxvt is completely different from xterm in may aspects, this prevents
HOME and END keys from working, as well as restoring the primary screen in 
progs that use the alternate screen. The correct value for TERM is "rxvt"!

[Comment 1 Mamoru KOMACHI (RETIRED) 2003-10-02 08:53:41 UTC]

Hum, I understand what you mean. It's okay to set TERM=rxvt by default,
but it may break rxvt on monochrome display (you can still use rxvt
with TERM=rxvt-basic). I guess nobody uses monochrome display on
Gentoo (though I am using monochrome X on NetBSD ;-p) but still it
would be nice to display a notice after emerge.  Can you think of good
message for that?  It's a matter of English lessons for me ;-)

[Comment 2 Mamoru KOMACHI (RETIRED) 2003-11-08 11:29:21 UTC]

All right, I make default TERM variable configurable and set it to
"rxvt" instead of "xterm" by default. If you still have any problem
around it, please reopen this bug.

[Comment 3 Reporter 2003-11-09 17:58:06 UTC]

ah, bugzilla email still broken! (sorry, I never saw any responses
to this page)

If the only difference between rxvt-basic and rxvt is colors, wouldn't
it be better to use rxvt-basic by default and override that with
rxvt from a color app-defaults file? (sorry bartron for stealing your 
idea, but you said I could)
(that means AFTER bug #25705 and bug #26354 are closed; unfortunately they're

low-priority to the xfree team because they don't cause any crashes. You
may 
want to poke the one non-dev commenter in those bugs a bit more; 1. he seems

to know a lot more than he says; and 2. people seem to listen to what he
says; 
and 3. he seems to have the ability to find a solution for everything in
less 
than 5 minutes. He promised to write a comment here when bug #26354 and 
bug #25705 are closed; unfortunately all he has to say now is for me to be

more patient)

[Comment 4 Mamoru KOMACHI (RETIRED) 2003-11-11 08:41:19 UTC]

no, rxvt-basic shouldn't be default because it causes problem when you
ssh to other boxes, say FreeBSD or Red Hat (Not only dialog based
program is affected but also fundamental control key sequences such as
^H are broken). They all have a terminfo/termcap entry for rxvt-basic,
so I need to investigate the differenct between their entries and
Gentoo's one.