[gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Walter Dnes]

  I normally install Gentoo by manually typing in stuff, on the target
machine, as per the docs.  This is painfull.  Today I decided to ssh
into the install, and cut + paste stuff into an ssh xterm into the
install.  This went flying along really fast until I went to emerge
after having updated make.conf.  I got a slew of weird errors.

  It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
some "simple" edits over ssh.  This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
it may apply to more than just nano.  But see...
https://serverfault.com/questions/329154/ssh-garbling-characters-in-vim-nano-on-remote-server
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/1436

  I don't understand the workings of terminfo so my 3-part question is...

1) Can I do an incantation on the laptop (install machine) to make it
understand my desktop's xterm?

2) Can I do an incantation on the desktop's xterm, or install another
terminal, to make its output understandable to the target machine?

3) Or do I have to pull the laptop onto my desk, and type in stuff
manually for everything nano-related during the install?

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[tastytea]

On 2020-07-07 22:02-0400 "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> […]
> 
>   It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
> some "simple" edits over ssh.  This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
> it may apply to more than just nano.  But see...
> https://serverfault.com/questions/329154/ssh-garbling-characters-in-vim-nano-on-remote-server
> https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/1436
> 
>   I don't understand the workings of terminfo so my 3-part question
> is...
> 
> 1) Can I do an incantation on the laptop (install machine) to make it
> understand my desktop's xterm?

Your 2 hyperlinks mention that executing `export TERM=xterm-color` on
your laptop should work around the issue.

Kind regards, tastytea

Re: [gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 06:06:56AM +0200, tastytea wrote
> On 2020-07-07 22:02-0400 "Walter Dnes" <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> 
> >   It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
> > some "simple" edits over ssh.  This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
> > it may apply to more than just nano.  But see...
> > https://serverfault.com/questions/329154/ssh-garbling-characters-in-vim-nano-on-remote-server
> > https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/1436
> > 
> >   I don't understand the workings of terminfo so my 3-part question
> > is...
> > 
> > 1) Can I do an incantation on the laptop (install machine) to make it
> > understand my desktop's xterm?
> 
> Your 2 hyperlinks mention that executing `export TERM=xterm-color` on
> your laptop should work around the issue.

  Thanks, I missed that.  I'll try again and see how it goes.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Grant Taylor]

On 7/7/20 10:40 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> Thanks, I missed that.  I'll try again and see how it goes.

If you continue to have problems, I would very much like to know the 
particulars.

My experience has been that changing the TERM environment variable has 
had very little success in fixing things like this.

In fact, the only way that I see it working is if you are TERM is set to 
something MASSIVELY wrong for your actual terminal.  I.e. trying to send 
fancy xterm / ANSI control sequences to an old dumb terminal like a VT100.

Seeing as how ANSI / XTERM* is effectively a significant super set of 
VT100, setting the TERM variable to an older less capable value does 
little other than limit features.

That being said, I have seen problems when there is a size mismatch 
between what's running on the host and the terminal.  Sort of like if 
you re-sized the window after starting nano (et al.).  Things can get 
weird then.

Beyond any of this, I'd be quite curious what problems you're having.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Re: [gentoo-user] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[William Kenworthy]

On 8/7/20 12:58 pm, Grant Taylor wrote:
> On 7/7/20 10:40 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
>> Thanks, I missed that.  I'll try again and see how it goes.
>
> If you continue to have problems, I would very much like to know the
> particulars.
>
> My experience has been that changing the TERM environment variable has
> had very little success in fixing things like this.
>
> In fact, the only way that I see it working is if you are TERM is set
> to something MASSIVELY wrong for your actual terminal.  I.e. trying to
> send fancy xterm / ANSI control sequences to an old dumb terminal like
> a VT100.
>
> Seeing as how ANSI / XTERM* is effectively a significant super set of
> VT100, setting the TERM variable to an older less capable value does
> little other than limit features.
>
> That being said, I have seen problems when there is a size mismatch
> between what's running on the host and the terminal.  Sort of like if
> you re-sized the window after starting nano (et al.).  Things can get
> weird then.
>
> Beyond any of this, I'd be quite curious what problems you're having.
>
Try hitting the F11 key (full screen, hit again to go back )when logged
in to rewrite  the screen with the session rereading the screen sizes.

BillK

[gentoo-user] Re: SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Grant Edwards]

On 2020-07-08, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:

> Today I decided to ssh into the install, and cut + paste stuff into
> an ssh xterm into the install.  This went flying along really fast
> until I went to emerge after having updated make.conf.  I got a slew
> of weird errors.

I've been installing Gentoo that way for almost 20 years and never had
a problem.  I very rarely use xterm though -- I used aterm for years,
switched to rxvt, and then to urxvt.

> It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
> some "simple" edits over ssh.  This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
> it may apply to more than just nano.

--
Grant

[gentoo-user] [SOLVED] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Walter Dnes]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2020 at 10:58:48PM -0600, Grant Taylor wrote
> On 7/7/20 10:40 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:
> > Thanks, I missed that.  I'll try again and see how it goes.
> 
> If you continue to have problems, I would very much like to know the 
> particulars.
> 
> My experience has been that changing the TERM environment variable has 
> had very little success in fixing things like this.
> 
> In fact, the only way that I see it working is if you are TERM is set to 
> something MASSIVELY wrong for your actual terminal.  I.e. trying to send 
> fancy xterm / ANSI control sequences to an old dumb terminal like a VT100.

  Once you know what questions to ask, things become easier.  Knowing
that it was a TERM mismatch, a bit of googling turned up the "toe"
command, which lists what your terminal supports.  It looks like the
install CD defaults to TERM="linux", which xterm (the app) doesn't
support, according to "toe".  Setting TERM on both ends to "xterm"
solves the problem.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

[gentoo-user] [SOLVED] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 01:48:42PM -0000, Grant Edwards wrote

> I've been installing Gentoo that way for almost 20 years and never had
> a problem.  I very rarely use xterm though -- I used aterm for years,
> switched to rxvt, and then to urxvt.

  As I mentioned in another post, the "toe" command shows which TERM
types you terminal supports.  xterm (the app) doesn't support "linux"
TERM type.  The solution was to set TERM to "xterm" at both ends.
Basically, run "toe" on both machines and find a common entry that they
both support.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: SSH xterm not working properly during install

[james]

On 7/8/20 9:48 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
> On 2020-07-08, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
> 
>> Today I decided to ssh into the install, and cut + paste stuff into
>> an ssh xterm into the install.  This went flying along really fast
>> until I went to emerge after having updated make.conf.  I got a slew
>> of weird errors.
> 
> I've been installing Gentoo that way for almost 20 years and never had
> a problem.  I very rarely use xterm though -- I used aterm for years,
> switched to rxvt, and then to urxvt.
> 
>> It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
>> some "simple" edits over ssh.  This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
>> it may apply to more than just nano.
> 
> --
> Grant
> 
> 


x11-misc/urxvtconfig

might be useful to you

https://github.com/daedreth/URXVTConfig

hth,
James

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: SSH xterm not working properly during install

[james]

On 7/8/20 10:05 PM, james wrote:
> On 7/8/20 9:48 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
>> On 2020-07-08, Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Today I decided to ssh into the install, and cut + paste stuff into
>>> an ssh xterm into the install.� This went flying along really fast
>>> until I went to emerge after having updated make.conf.� I got a slew
>>> of weird errors.
>>
>> I've been installing Gentoo that way for almost 20 years and never had
>> a problem.� I very rarely use xterm though -- I used aterm for years,
>> switched to rxvt, and then to urxvt.
>>
>>> It turns out that make.conf was majorly butchered after I had done
>>> some "simple" edits over ssh.� This seems to be a terminfo problem, so
>>> it may apply to more than just nano.
>>
>> -- 
>> Grant
>>
>>
> 
> 
> x11-misc/urxvtconfig
> 
> might be useful to you
> 
> https://github.com/daedreth/URXVTConfig
> 
> hth,
> James


AND 'rich' looks like it picks up color to fancy features, if somebody 
figures out how to set it up
on gentoo:

https://pypi.org/project/rich/


"Render rich text, tables, progress bars, syntax highlighting, markdown 
and more to the terminal "

This one has been on the 'todo' list for me for a while.

hth,

James

Re: [gentoo-user] [SOLVED] SSH xterm not working properly during install

[Walter Dnes]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2020 at 03:42:29PM -0400, Walter Dnes wrote

>   As I mentioned in another post, the "toe" command shows which TERM
> types you terminal supports.  xterm (the app) doesn't support "linux"
> TERM type.  The solution was to set TERM to "xterm" at both ends.
> Basically, run "toe" on both machines and find a common entry that they
> both support.

  I've got a bootable install running... yay!  There's still some setup
to do, but I can handle it from my desktop.  One thing I might forward
to the maintainers as a documentation bug/suggestion...

  If you're doing a remote install via ssh, *BEFORE THE REBOOT* run
"ssh-keygen" on the install target, and then...

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub root@<install_target>:/mnt/gentoo/root/.ssh/authorized_keys

  This allows a root connection from your machine to the target machine,
so that you're not locked out <G>.  In my case, I only had to walk a few
steps to the laptop, run ssh-keygen, edit /etc/ssh/sshd.config, restart
sshd, and login manually via ssh.  If you're doing a really remote
install, it could be embarressing.  After uploading my key, I've changed
sshd.config back and restarted sshd.

-- 
Walter Dnes <waltdnes@waltdnes.org>
I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications