# terminal is not fully functional



## geosman (Sep 15, 2007)

Don't know how I did this but I'm sure I was whaling away and mistyped something somehow.
Now when I "man xxxx" I get "WARNING: terminal is not fully functional and - (press RETURN)" on second line. If I press return it responds with the page but some of the keys to move around are not responding.
Can someone suggest a means to clean it up?


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

Your message has missing information so we cannot help you. At the very least please
quote linux distribution (and version).

Which terminal?
xterm?
konsole?
eterm?
gnome-terminal?

If its Ubuntu this may be your solution:
Terminal is not fully functional


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## geosman (Sep 15, 2007)

It's Slackware 13.0, xfce, the terminal is "Terminal" where preferences>advanced is set to xterm.
Regular users show xterm for echo $TERM and blank for echo $TERMINFO and likewise for root.
/usr/share/terminfo/x has an xterm file
/usr/share/local does not exist
~/.terminfo does not exist for regular users or root.
Does that help?


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## geosman (Sep 15, 2007)

By using export TERM=xterm I have resolved the problem but would still like to know why because each new "Terminal"s need to have the same treatment. Can this be implemented in other ways than setting it up in .bashrc.


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

geosman said:


> By using export TERM=xterm I have resolved the problem but would still like to know why because each new "Terminal"s need to have the same treatment. Can this be implemented in other ways than setting it up in .bashrc.


After some googling looks like it is a common problem in Slackware 13. You can make 
export TERM=xterm

permanent by appending an entry in /etc/profile
which should solve your problem.


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## geosman (Sep 15, 2007)

Yes, putting export TERM=xterm would work in /etc/profile, .profile, or .bashrc. 
I am trying to find where it went wrong as well as fix it possibly as U suggest.
I encountered Text-Termina-HOWTO which claimed I could find out how my terminal was defined (specified in "Terminal"s toolbar via Edit>Preferences>Advanced as xterm) using infocmp. That produces:
infocmp: couldn't open terminfo file /usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm .
Also echo $TERM yields xterm when invoked in the "Terminal" window.
This suggests to me that possibly the file /usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm may be corrupted, since the Terminal window is specifically defined as xterm but infocmp doesn't recognize the term. Do you think this may be correct?

I also ran tset -q which yielded: tset: unknown terminal type xterm
which suggests the same thing.

I learned in my search that tic will compile the terminfo data base from the source (supposedly termcap).
I would be willing to do that in this case but am not sure of exactly how tic does that and if it would be the same result as when the file was originally created. No new definitions have been added since install unless I did something inadvertently which changed something.
Are U or someone else familiar with using tic?


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

What you have to remember about Slackware is that its developers have stubbornly resisted any attempts to make their users' lives easier: the distribution provides no graphical configuration utilities, and it's package management does not resolve dependencies.

It is also the lack of any convenient tools that appeals to its customisation. Every Slackware user has a different configuration, and its lack of tools puts it on par with Gentoo and Arch Linux.

If your terminal works once you have modified /etc/profile then I would be content with that, sometimes with Slackware you have to make compromises. I've not used tic but plenty of info here:
tic - Linux Command - Unix Command

My system is pretty fast so I generally work in KDE4, E17 or Gnome 2 and my preferred terminal in Konsole or Eterm.

You could try an alternate terminal like Aterm or Eterm, alternatively there is an exclusive slackware forum link which may be able to provide more specific help
on your terminal problem:
Slackware - LinuxQuestions.org

Hope that helps


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