Debian bug report logs - #927
dselect display bug

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From cus.cam.ac.uk!iwj10 Tue May 30 15:08:13 1995
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From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#927: dselect display bug

Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#927: dselect display bug"):
> Package: dpkg
> Version: 0.93.42
> 
> I've been noticing for some time now that dselect will sometimes
> scroll the top line of the display off, and finally realized
> what the common denominator in "sometimes" is.  This happens
> after I use kermit to dial up a remote system which resets my
> screen to 80X24.  dselect seems to assume that the screen
> is set to 80X25 on startup, and this isn't necessarily true.

This is probably an ncurses bug.  ncurses determines the screen size
itself, and makes heavy use of the information itself (as well as
passing it up to dselect so that dselect can carve up the available
area).

It's also possible that kermit or the remote system is putting the
terminal in a weird mode and not resetting it properly.  If this is
the case then it's a bug in kermit or the remote system, respectively.
Applications like dselect are entitled to assume that the terminal
starts in a moderately sane state.

If someone tells me that significant numbers of ncurses bugs are fixed
in a particular ncurses version I'll download and install that and
upload a new dpkg package.

However, I don't want to spend any more time than I have to
documenting and reporting ncurses bugs, and I certainly don't want to
get into regression testing ncurses and re-reporting old bugs.

Whatever it is, it's not a bug in dselect :-).  (I'll leave this bug
open, of course - when the problem has been identified and solved,
could the person responsible please close it).

Ian.

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From mdd.comm.mot.com!mitchell Mon May 29 17:19:10 1995
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Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 17:19:03 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>
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Subject: dselect display bug
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Package:  dpkg
Version:  0.93.42

I've been noticing for some time now that dselect will sometimes
scroll the top line of the display off, and finally realized
what the common denominator in "sometimes" is.  This happens
after I use kermit to dial up a remote system which resets my
screen to 80X24.  dselect seems to assume that the screen
is set to 80X25 on startup, and this isn't necessarily true.

mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com (Bill Mitchell)