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Revision 1.15 by root, Wed Jul 13 02:53:54 2005 UTC vs.
Revision 1.25 by root, Thu Jan 12 05:37:34 2006 UTC

1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I
3 change/disable it?
4 You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
5 perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
6 rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
7
8 If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
9 identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the
10 section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For
11 example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify
12 this perl-ext-common resource:
13
14 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
15
16 This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
17 extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
18 scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any
19 other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback
20 resource:
21
22 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
23
24 Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
25 I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause
26 extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you
27 can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables
28 always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS)
29 after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is
30 a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding
31 conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
32
33 text data bss drs rss filename
34 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
35 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
36
37 When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves
38 xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11
39 and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
40
41 text data bss drs rss filename
42 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
43 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
44
45 The very large size of the text section is explained by the
46 east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but
47 nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core
48 fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k
49 emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course
50 doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font
51 instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft
52 indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.
53
54 Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
55 one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
56 more memory.
57
58 Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k),
59 this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
60 gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or
61 konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after
62 exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of
63 warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.
64
65 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
66 Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is:
67 I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
68 fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me).
69 Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
70
71 My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but
72 in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability
73 limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale
74 support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than
75 C++ itself.
76
77 Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write
78 programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to
79 write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large
80 libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is
81 what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:
82
83 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
84 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
85 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
86 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
87
88 And here is rxvt-unicode:
89
90 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
91 libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
92 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
93 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
94 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
95
96 No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in
97 statically), except maybe libX11 :)
98
99 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
100 rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with
101 tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing
102 programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into
103 other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming
104 "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)
105 terminal as an example embedding application.
106
2 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? 107 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
3 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape 108 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape
4 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number. 109 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number.
110 When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the
111 daemon.
5 112
6 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... 113 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
7 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large 114 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
8 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. 115 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.
9 Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please 116 Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please
15 122
16 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and 123 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and
17 probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's 124 probably should use the Debian BTS, too, because, after all, it's
18 also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for 125 also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for
19 other users that might encounter the same issue. 126 other users that might encounter the same issue.
127
128 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any
129 recommendation?
130 You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
131 enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
132 runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
133 them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl
134 interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus,
135 selection, likely more in the future) depends on it.
136
137 You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"
138 resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will
139 result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,
140 add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.
141 This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables
142 it.
143
144 If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal
145 one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
146 "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot
147 of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely
148 used).
149
150 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this
151 safe?
152 Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably
153 not bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of
154 freetype + fontconfig + xft + xlib + perl + ... + rxvt-unicode
155 itself to all be secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options
156 when it detects that it runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice.
157 Besides, with the embedded perl interpreter the possibility for
158 security problems easily multiplies.
159
160 Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on
161 some systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra
162 privileges for ptys, but some need it for utmp support). It is
163 planned to mvoe this into a forked handler process, but this is not
164 yet done.
165
166 So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on
167 your typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always
168 remember that its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked
169 for security issues regularly.
20 170
21 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 171 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data?
22 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely 172 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely
23 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same 173 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same
24 problem often arises). 174 problem often arises).
448 it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell. 598 it gets worse, as rxvt-unicode then uses 8 bytes per screen cell.
449 599
450 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow? 600 Can I speed up Xft rendering somehow?
451 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely, 601 Yes, the most obvious way to speed it up is to avoid Xft entirely,
452 as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to 602 as it is simply slow. If you still want Xft fonts you might try to
453 disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialiasing=false"), which 603 disable antialiasing (by appending ":antialias=false"), which saves
454 saves lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably. 604 lots of memory and also speeds up rendering considerably.
455 605
456 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong? 606 Rxvt-unicode doesn't seem to anti-alias its fonts, what is wrong?
457 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to 607 Rxvt-unicode will use whatever you specify as a font. If it needs to
458 fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core 608 fall back to it's default font search list it will prefer X11 core
459 fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It 609 fonts, because they are small and fast, and then use Xft fonts. It
531 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff 681 URxvt.color14: #73f7ff
532 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd 682 URxvt.color7: #e1dddd
533 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd 683 URxvt.color15: #e1dddd
534 684
535 How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way? 685 How can I start rxvtd in a race-free way?
536 Despite it's name, rxvtd is not a real daemon, but more like a 686 Try "rxvtd -f -o", which tells rxvtd to open the display, create the
537 server that answers rxvtc's requests, so it doesn't background 687 listening socket and then fork.
538 itself.
539
540 To ensure rxvtd is listening on it's socket, you can use the
541 following method to wait for the startup message before continuing:
542
543 { rxvtd & } | read
544 688
545 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour? 689 What's with the strange Backspace/Delete key behaviour?
546 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the 690 Assuming that the physical Backspace key corresponds to the
547 BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following 691 BackSpace keysym (not likely for Linux ... see the following
548 question) there are two standard values that can be used for 692 question) there are two standard values that can be used for

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