quillen@orion.fccc.edu (John Quillen) (06/18/91)
I finally solved two mysteries plaguing me for some time now, which I
was surprised to find were related.
Using a DECStation 5000/200 with Ultrix 4.1:
1. From an xterm window dxterm failed silently. From the prompt
I would type dxterm and get my prompt back. $status was zero.
No indication anywhere of why a DECterm didn't appear.
2. When su'ing from my account to update the named passwd database
my updates didn't show up. It worked fine for other people in
the group.
Both problems turned out to be the result of setting TERMCAP to an
absolute file path (eg: setenv TERMCAP $HOME/.xterm). unsetenv'ing
the TERMCAP variable or setting it to the contents of my termcap file
make both problems go away.
BTW. make passwd failed, I believe, because the make_passwd script
calls ex with stdin, which I assume dies due to it (ex) not liking
my TERMCAP.
I can't image why dxterm and ex die without warning. It would be
nice if they at least said "I don't like your TERMCAP entry," or
something.
Also, someone recently complained about hardcoding shells in vipw. A
similar problem which bugs me is that man(1) hardcodes page(1) as the
browser. Don't most BSDs use the environment variable PAGER (I prefer
less over more) to allow selection of a browser?
Does anyone know if these problems were fixed in 4.2?
--
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John W. Quillen, Jr. Phone: (215) 728-3660
Research Computing Services FAX: (215) 728-3574
The Fox Chase Cancer Center internet: JW_Quillen@fccc.edu
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