GNU screen version confusion

Question

I try to use mousetrack on in screen in Debian Jessie, and it is supported from version 4.1 Mouse in screen(1) on the Linux console?

But there are some confusion in the screen version.

dpkg -s screen: "Version: 4.2.1-3"
screen -v: "Screen version 4.02.01 (GNU) 28-Apr-14“

How to run screen 4.2 instead of 4.02?

Answer 1

Seems the GNU screen project itself inserts leadings zeros into the version numbers reported. Probably to avoid confusion between version numbers like x.11 and x.2 - which one is newer then? x.11 could be the next version after x.10 or just a minor version number bump from x.1 and older than x.2.

Have you actually tried to use this feature?

For me adding mousetrack on to my ~/.screenrc changed behavior for Ctrl-A : windowlist. With it I could move the selection of the window with my mouse, without the mouse had no effect. Did no further experiments with it, though.

I did this with Debian Jessie, exactly the same version of screen you have and Konsole as terminal. Might work different for other terminals, though.