5
1
Using the command echo $TERM
, I get the output 'xterm'. However, I have not done anything to install the X Windowing System, and as far as I know, Xterm cannot run without it, and Arch does not install it by default. (Furthermore, there isn't any manpage on xterm, and I would think that if I actually had xterm installed, it would have a manpage).
So is the default terminal for Arch Linux really Xterm? If so, how is it running without X? If not, why does the $TERM
variable contain 'xterm', and what is the default terminal?
1Could you elaborate on that last part? – Daniel Beck – 2011-11-26T14:06:22.883
Which part are you referring to -- "your own shell startup" or "Arch Wiki"? – user1686 – 2011-11-26T14:13:46.203
When googling for an example of Arch's inittab (being away from my own system), I found the Arch Wiki page on "Init and inittab", which has such examples in it (agetty being told to use "xterm-256color" as the terminal name) without sufficient explanation as to why it should be done like that. Not only this configuration is incorrect and cannot add any new features (such as more colors) to the Linux tty, it can even break programs expecting to be able to use Xterm-specific commands, as other users blindly trust and copy-paste the Wiki examples... – user1686 – 2011-11-26T15:26:12.517
Ah right now I understand what you mean. It'd configure the Linux virtual console to pretend to be xterm, with negative side effects in everything checking e.g. Term env variable or Termcap – Daniel Beck – 2011-11-26T15:33:54.787
In
/etc/inittab
, all of the agetty lines (tty1 through tty6) have 'linux'. None of the other files you mentioned have anything that looks like it could affect$TERM
, however,/etc/profile.d
does contain two files 'xorg.sh' and 'xorg.csh' (but they contain nothing that looks like it could be affecting$TERM
. – Anachrome – 2011-11-26T19:46:52.6032Alright, I feel like a complete moron--the
$TERM
on my arch linux computer is 'linux'; however, I've been accessing the computer via ssh (the keyboard is busted, I just used my desktop keyboard, which happens to be a USB keyboard, to do). I had no idea that ssh would use a diff terminal than the one the computer was using, though it seems pretty obvious now. Sorry for that. – Anachrome – 2011-11-26T20:18:40.773