Arch Linux User Repository

Hi @milouse,

my conversation so far with Thomas Dickey from ncurses (https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-ncurses/2019-10/msg00070.html) has revealed something that I didn't previously realize:

• The terminfo entries from upstream st have two bad tmux extensions in them. While they don't cause any obvious errors while I'm using them, that may not be the case in general. I don't think that they should be distributed.
• He regularly releases an updated terminfo database between ncurses versions that is intended to be included in distribution packages. ArchLinux is not doing this.
• He believes his current st terminfo entry to be correct. I have not verified this yet.
• There is a clear argument for distributing all terminfo entries with ncurses: When you ssh into a machine, that machine must know your terminal emulator. Most terminal emulators don't get installed on most machines (especially servers).

I have analyzed various terminfo entries for st from several ncurses versions, as well as from upstream st. I now understand what's wrong with the entries provided with st and am working on understanding his modifications to it.

My plan is as follows:

1. Clear up any questions I have about the current st terminfo file provided by ncurses.
2. Test entries that should be good.
3. File a bug report and patch with st to fix the problems with their terminfo entry.
4. File a bug report with the ArchLinux ncurses package hoping to move them to use officially released and updated terminfo databases between ncurses versions.

Thanks for your encouragement.

Hi @waschtl,

I just read with attention your README about the terminfo problem. I'm aware of it since a long time, but must admit I never take time to do anything forward. Thus I'm very insteresting to follow up your discussion with either ncurse team or Archlinux team. How do you think to proceed? A quick check in the archlinux bug tracker show me no bug related to that. I wonder if a quick fix won't be to ask there to remove st information from the archlinux ncurse package. As st is NOT provided in any official repository, I think it's not a big problem to remove responsibility of that.

Thank you for your involvment!

Yes :-) Thanks.

No problem. I think I will remove the error message. It's counterintuitive.

I did not know about BlackArch. Thanks for the pointer.

1. yes, sorry. blackarch repos.

@simona, two questions:

1. Where is yay finding the package paraxor-st? I can't find it in the AUR.

   yay -Si paraxor-st

2. Does installing st work if you try again?

   The error message you are reporting is there so that you know that st can only be configured before compilation. If yay caches the package directory, a second attempt should no longer show the error.

Yes. yay was installing paraxor-st. another pkg. But installing true st it give me:

patching file Makefile ==> ERRORE: This package can be configured in config.h. Copy config.def.h just placed into the package directory to config.h and modify it to change the configuration. Or just leave it alone to use default values. Then restart the build process. ==> ERRORE: Si è verificato un errore in prepare(). L'operazione sta per essere interrotta...

@simona, you should be fine as it is. I may have expressed myself poorly. I meant to say that the package does not put any files in /usr/share/terminfo.

Are you getting an error message?

@waschtl can I change where to install? I use yay.

Hi simona, greetings to Italy.

If I understand you correctly, you are telling me that the following two files in this package conflict with ncurses:

• /usr/share/terminfo/s/st
• /usr/share/terminfo/s/st-256color

I couldn't figure out what you meant by "paraxor-st" though.

And I completely agree. ncurses is making it difficult for me to package st well. Precisely for that reason, I did not install those files to the locations you mentioned. Instead they are being installed to

• /usr/share/st/terminfo/s/st
• /usr/share/st/terminfo/s/st-256color

Notice the extra st after /usr/share.