David wrote:
I have a Debian woody box run in console mode only. While I was logged into another woody box, I did:
#cat mystery.file The mystery file turned out to be a word .doc
Subsequently, my prompt and anything going to the screen has turned into gibberish. Even after logging out of the other box I'm still getting gibberish at the prompt, and can't get rid of the gibberish on that console, although the others all work fine. I was going to cut and paste it here, but instead of what i actually see on the screen, I get the mangled console message reproduced below. Is there any way to restart that console and get it back? Does anyone know what might have happened?
type 'stty sane' at the console. That will often fix up the screen. The mangled screen occurs when you cat binary data to the screen that has various control codes in it. Screens can accept control codes to change there behaviour and layout like colors, text widths etc.
If I have a file but I dont know what it is then type:
file mystery.file
If it says ASCII then its plain text and catting it to the screen will be fine. If it says 'data' then it might be binary and will mess up your screen. 'file' might even recognise it as a Word Doc.
Mike -- Michael Lake Chemistry, Materials & Forensic Science, UTS Ph: 9514 1724 Fx: 9514 1460
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