Re: misc/10127 (port i386 /etc/ttys says vt220 instead of wsvt25)

["Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc." <woods%planix.ca@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/10127; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: "Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc." <woods%planix.ca@localhost>
To: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
Cc: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost,
 misc-bug-people%NetBSD.org@localhost,
 gnats-admin%NetBSD.org@localhost
Subject: Re: misc/10127 (port i386 /etc/ttys says vt220 instead of wsvt25)
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 15:49:43 -0400

 On 13-May-08, at 3:27 PM, Manuel Bouyer wrote:
 >
 > I don't know much peoples who would think about changing $TERM
 > when connecting to a non-NetBSD box from a NetBSD console. I think  
 > using
 > vt220 by default is fine (and AFAIK curses applications are  
 > perfectly happy
 > with vt220 on a NetBSD console ...)
 
 Learning to set $TERM appropriately when accessing remote systems  
 should be a beginner's Unix lesson.  In fact that's one of the first  
 things anyone should learn once they get beyond basic "ls", "cp",  
 "mv", etc. kinds of things.  Learning about exporting $TERMCAP goes  
 hand in hand with that too.  If the remote system actually supports  
 $TERMCAP (and not terminfo, for example), then pasting "tset -EQs"  
 output from the local session into the remote session should be an  
 almost automatic behaviour.
 
 BTW, if you look at the differences between the default vt220  
 definition (which is itself somewhat bastardized because it's not  
 exactly representing a DEC VT220 terminal) and the full wsvt25  
 definition I think you'll find many very important differences.   
 Perhaps simple applications like "vi" won't show any issues, but  
 others definitely will.  I can't remember exactly what made me annoyed  
 because it wasn't working right, but as soon as I learned there was a  
 proper complete termcap definition for the actual wscons emulation and  
 I began to use that definition then all of my problems disappeared.   
 These days I personally don't use wscons much any more as most systems  
 I use have serial consoles.
 
 BTW, also, there are some minor problems with the wsvt25 termcap entry  
 too that I keep meaning to send-pr.  For example the "xn" hack should  
 be turned off, the initialization file (if) is not needed, the  
 initialization string should include "\E)0", and since libterm isn't  
 broken on NetBSD the continuation should be "vt220", not "vt220-8".
 
 -- 
                                        Greg A. Woods; Planix, Inc.
                                        <woods%planix.ca@localhost>