Subject: Re: An old unix Issue the Delete key how do you fix it
To: None <netbsd-help@NetBSD.org>
From: James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>
List: netbsd-help
Date: 05/05/2007 10:37:13
Valeriy E. Ushakov wrote:
> I'd like to know why --
> > sooner or later, with enough indirection via ssh/rsh -- the backspace
> > key starts being echoed as ^H when I mistype a search in less(1).
>
> less doesn't check "kb" capability and you have stty erase '^?' on
> that system.
Well if that doesn't beat all. I don't know how to fix it yet, but you're
on to something.
I use my Powerbook as a (mostly) troublefree front-end to my NetBSD
machine. Generally I'm logged into NetBSD over the wireless connection
using rsh. (I don't mind if the neighbors eavesdrop. Hi Greg!)
The Powerbook has a key in the upper left corner labelled "delete". I
guess Apple didn't bite from the same apple IBM did. OS X seems to map it
to ^H:
$ stty -a | sed -n '/^cc/,$p'
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^H; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = <undef>;
stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
When I rsh from that terminal to NetBSD 2.0, it switches, just as you
said:
$ stty -a | sed -n '/^cc/,$p'
cchars: discard = ^O; dsusp = ^Y; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; erase = ^?; intr = ^C; kill = ^U; lnext = ^V;
min = 1; quit = ^\; reprint = ^R; start = ^Q; status = ^T;
stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; time = 0; werase = ^W;
but if I try "man ls" while logged in and try to use the, um, delete key
when searching, I get:
/^H
I think that confirms what you said. Except that it works fine when
logged in locally.
What's the Right Thing to do?
Much obliged.
--jkl