> I think that I figured out where the problem with "ls" and desktop
> lies.
>
> "ls" gets the line length correctly and computes its # of columns
> accordingly.  It uses <tab> to implement column alignment, based on 8
> characters per tab.  In small font, desktop appears to give tabs of 10
> characters.

Desktop does not give tabs of 10 characters because it does not give tabs
at all.  The tty through which desktop works translates the tabs into
spaces, and this is hard-coded to 8 characters.  Try "stty tabs" and
"stty -tabs" to see the difference.

In addition, the tabs of desktop are also set to 8 characters, although
they can be changed to anything (even non-regularly spaced) as per VT100.
Tabs in desktop are unlikely to be the problem, though, since that setting
would be the same in both small and large fonts.

I tried "ls" with a bunch of difference cases in both small and large font
and never had a problem.  Does it still happen if you do "ls >file" and
"cat file"?  If so, what does "od -c file" show?  Could you post that?
(Or just send it to me?)

Lawrence



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