Moving from FreeBSD to Linux, another issue that came up is that apparently Linux’s default terminal information allows the use of the “alternate screen buffer” from vt102 or some such thing. This is what causes less and vi to clear the screen when you exit, screen to not allow you to use xterm’s scrollback buffer, and other such anti-user things that really ought to be disabled by default. (Hell if I wanted that enabled, I’d just run the programs in their own xterm, so when I exit they just disappear completely).
The solution that works for me can be found here:
Exorcising the Evil Alternate Screen
Specifically, I added the line to .Xdefaults, and ran xrdb as specified, and that took care of it. The terminfo stuff at the end of the page didn’t work, but that might just be because I’m using Debian instead of another distro (maybe some look in $HOME/terminfo by default, who knows).
October 24th, 2005 at 6:42 pm
So why you movin’ away from FreeBSD, anyway?
October 24th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
I’ve had to upgrade the entire OS one or two too many times, in order to upgrade an application in ports. Like, I’ll cvsup ports, and that won’t be enough because of some libraries found in the base system are too old. There’s no package that lets you upgrade the libraries separately, so you have to cvsup the src and rebuild world entirely.
So with Debian, I can upgrade packages as appropriate, without having to reinstall everything.
Plus, some critical bugs aren’t being fixed in current -RELEASE branches, only to be fixed in the next -RELEASE, whenever that’ll be. Security fixes are done, but serious crash bugs like this PAE bug don’t end up in the -RELEASE line. So you have to upgrade the entire OS to fix that one tiny two line bug.
With Linux, I can just upgrade the kernel and be done with it.
Plus I can’t seem to get core dumps from FreeBSD 5.4. But I’m probably doing something wrong there, who knows and who really has time to track down bugs when the fixes won’t end up working with what you already have installed.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
It’s a sad thing. I’m still on FreeBSD 4-STABLE, `cause i’ve heard nothing that gives me enough confidence to go to 5.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
FreeBSD 6 is considered basically FreeBSD 5 with a bigger number. Dunno why it’s not just FreeBSD 5.5, though. Heh. Wonder why they don’t go to 8 ala BIND, sendmail. :)
October 25th, 2005 at 11:31 am
The OCHO!