I do not want to add any further patches to Debian's screen package which makes it differ from upstream behaviour more than it already does. (Of course, it's a different thing if issues are caused by existing patches.)
And IMHO workarounds for issues in other packages do not belong into shell startup files either. (Saying this with my Debian Zsh Team hat on.) Additionally, after the long and thorough discussion in the Debian bug report (and additional discussions on the ncurses-term topic on IRC), I'm convinced that there is no perfect solution. If you change something to make screen usable in scenario X, it will make people using screen in scenario Y unhappy and vice versa. Even moving definitions from ncurses-term to ncurses-base doesn't make things better by default: It may help to SSH from older systems with ncurses-term to newer systems with just ncurses-base installed. But it will also cause issues for people SSHing from newer systems with just ncurses-base installed to older systems with an older version of ncurses-base installed. (Not having ncurses-term at all and all definitions in ncurses-base might look like a solution, but then it will which definitions are in that package at which version...) So yes, IMHO the best thing we can do is document the issue. (And improvements for the documentation are always welcome. :-) If you really think a behavioural change is needed in screen, then please make according suggestions upstream and submit patches there. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to gnome-terminal in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1726826 Title: screen 256 colour TERM setting breaks logging into older hosts Status in gnome-terminal package in Ubuntu: New Status in screen package in Ubuntu: Fix Committed Status in screen package in Debian: Fix Released Bug description: As of 16.04, the screen program started using a 256 colour setting. The problem is that this setting is relatively new and has not had a chance to propagate to older hosts, including something as new as the previous 15.x release. For example: -------------------------------------- paul@1604-host:~$ echo $TERM screen.xterm-256color paul@y1604-host:~$ ssh oldermachine Welcome to Ubuntu 15.04 (GNU/Linux 3.19.0-84-generic x86_64) * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/ 0 packages can be updated. 0 updates are security updates. Last login: Mon Oct 23 15:52:17 2017 from yow-pgortmak-d1.wrs.com paul@oldermachine:~$ echo foo > foo paul@yoldermachine:~$ less foo WARNING: terminal is not fully functional foo (press RETURN) paul@oldermachine:~$ export TERM=screen paul@yoldermachine:~$ less foo foo paul@oldermachine:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=15.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=vivid DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 15.04" paul@oldermachine:~$ ------------------------------------------ This makes it extremely annoying to use 16.04 in order to interact with any other linux/unix machines. The 256 color term type needs at least a couple years roll-out time before it becomes the default. Otherwise the older machines won't have it and they will complain and default to ancient crippled defaults and nag you each time they have to do so. To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1726826/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
