--- rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2005/02/14 18:47:54 1.11 +++ rxvt-unicode/README.FAQ 2005/12/24 12:55:17 1.20 @@ -1,13 +1,98 @@ FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS + Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat? + I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause + extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you + can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables + always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS) + after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is + a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding + conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything + 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything + + When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves + xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11 + and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so. + + text data bss drs rss filename + 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything + 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything + + The very large size of the text section is explained by the + east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but + nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core + fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k + emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course + doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font + instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft + indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used. + + Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of + one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use + more memory. + + Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k), + this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like + gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or + konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after + exit, plus half aminute of startup time, including the hundreds of + warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*. + + Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool? + Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is: + I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a + fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me). + Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++. + + My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but + in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability + limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale + support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than + C++ itself. + + Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write + programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to + write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large + libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is + what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + And here is rxvt-unicode: + + libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000) + libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000) + libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000) + libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000) + /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000) + + No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in + statically), except maybe libX11 :) + + Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode? + rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with + tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing + programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into + other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming + "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt) + terminal as an example embedding application. + How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. + When using the urxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the + daemon. I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... - The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode contains large patches - that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. Before - reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please download - and install the genuine version + The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large + patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. + Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please + download and install the genuine version () and try to reproduce the problem. If you cannot, chances are that the problems are specific to Debian GNU/Linux, in which case it should be reported via the @@ -47,7 +132,11 @@ If you don't plan to use rxvt (quite common...) you could also replace the rxvt terminfo file with the rxvt-unicode one. - "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under rxvt. + "tic" outputs some error when compiling the terminfo entry. + Most likely it's the empty definition for "enacs=". Just replace it + by "enacs=\E[0@" and try again. + + "bash"'s readline does not work correctly under urxvt. I need a termcap file entry. One reason you might want this is that some distributions or operating systems still compile some programs using the @@ -67,11 +156,12 @@ :co#80:it#8:li#24:lm#0:\ :AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:\ :K1=\EOw:K2=\EOu:K3=\EOy:K4=\EOq:K5=\EOs:LE=\E[%dD:\ - :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=^O:al=\E[L:\ - :as=^N:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:\ - :cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:dl=\E[M:do=^J:\ - :ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:\ - :im=\E[4h:is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ + :RI=\E[%dC:SF=\E[%dS:SR=\E[%dT:UP=\E[%dA:ae=\E(B:al=\E[L:\ + :as=\E(0:bl=^G:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:cl=\E[H\E[2J:\ + :cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:ct=\E[3g:dc=\E[P:\ + :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ec=\E[%dX:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:\ + :i1=\E[?47l\E=\E[?1l:ic=\E[@:im=\E[4h:\ + :is=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l:\ :k1=\E[11~:k2=\E[12~:k3=\E[13~:k4=\E[14~:k5=\E[15~:\ :k6=\E[17~:k7=\E[18~:k8=\E[19~:k9=\E[20~:kD=\E[3~:\ :kI=\E[2~:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=\177:kd=\EOB:ke=\E[?1l\E>:\ @@ -167,7 +257,7 @@ In that case, select a font of your taste and add it to the font list, e.g.: - rxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... + urxvt -fn basefont,font2,font3... When rxvt-unicode sees a character, it will first look at the base font. If the base font does not contain the character, it will go to @@ -227,6 +317,13 @@ All of this is not a problem when using X11 core fonts, as their bounding box data is correct. + On Solaris 9, many line-drawing characters are too wide. + Seems to be a known bug, read + . Some people use the + following ugly workaround to get non-double-wide-characters working: + + #define wcwidth(x) wcwidth(x) > 1 ? 1 : wcwidth(x) + My Compose (Multi_key) key is no longer working. The most common causes for this are that either your locale is not set correctly, or you specified a preeditStyle that is not supported @@ -280,13 +377,16 @@ representation of wchar_t. This is, of course, completely fine with respect to standards. - However, "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support - multi-language apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and - non-standardized) representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to - convert between wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and - any other encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for - each and every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t - into anything except the current locale encoding. + However, that means rxvt-unicode only works in "POSIX", "ISO-8859-1" + and "UTF-8" locales under FreeBSD (which all use Unicode as wchar_t. + + "__STDC_ISO_10646__" is the only sane way to support multi-language + apps in an OS, as using a locale-dependent (and non-standardized) + representation of wchar_t makes it impossible to convert between + wchar_t (as used by X11 and your applications) and any other + encoding without implementing OS-specific-wrappers for each and + every locale. There simply are no APIs to convert wchar_t into + anything except the current locale encoding. Some applications (such as the formidable mlterm) work around this by carrying their own replacement functions for character set @@ -299,6 +399,22 @@ the system libraries once and for all, instead of forcing every app to carry complete replacements for them :) + I use Solaris 9 and it doesn't compile/work/etc. + Try the diff in doc/solaris9.patch as a base. It fixes the worst + problems with "wcwidth" and a compile problem. + + How can I use rxvt-unicode under cygwin? + rxvt-unicode should compile and run out of the box on cygwin, using + the X11 libraries that come with cygwin. libW11 emulation is no + longer supported (and makes no sense, either, as it only supported a + single font). I recommend starting the X-server in "-multiwindow" or + "-rootless" mode instead, which will result in similar look&feel as + the old libW11 emulation. + + At the time of this writing, cygwin didn't seem to support any + multi-byte encodings (you might try "LC_CTYPE=C-UTF-8"), so you are + likely limited to 8-bit encodings. + How does rxvt-unicode determine the encoding to use? Is there an option to switch encodings? Unlike some other terminals, rxvt-unicode has no encoding switch, @@ -419,8 +535,8 @@ Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to - disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialiasing=false"), which - saves lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. + disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves + lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to @@ -436,7 +552,7 @@ some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt - or Shift keys are depressed. See rxvt(7) + or Shift keys are depressed. See urxvt(7) What's with this bold/blink stuff? If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using @@ -501,15 +617,9 @@ URxvt.color7: #e1dddd URxvt.color15: #e1dddd - How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? - Despite it's name, rxvtd is not a real daemon, but more like a - server that answers rxvtc's requests, so it doesn't background - itself. - - To ensure rxvtd is listening on it's socket, you can use the - following method to wait for the startup message before continuing: - - { rxvtd & } | read + How can I start urxvtd in a race-free way? + Try "urxvtd -f -o", which tells urxvtd to open the display, create + the listening socket and then fork. What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the @@ -532,13 +642,13 @@ # use Backspace = ^H $ stty erase ^H - $ rxvt + $ urxvt # use Backspace = ^? $ stty erase ^? - $ rxvt + $ urxvt - Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l" as documented in rxvt(7). + Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l" as documented in urxvt(7). For an existing rxvt-unicode: @@ -574,7 +684,7 @@ option you can use the `keysym' resource to alter the keystrings associated with keysyms. - Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "rxvt -name + Here's an example for a URxvt session started using "urxvt -name URxvt" URxvt.keysym.Home: \033[1~