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Revision 1.19 by root, Sat Dec 17 20:55:45 2005 UTC vs.
Revision 1.30 by root, Mon Jan 16 15:07:27 2006 UTC

1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
2 The new selection selects pieces that are too big, how can I select
3 single words?
4 Yes. For example, if you want to select alphanumeric words, you can
5 use the following resource:
6
7 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([[:word:]]+)
8
9 If you click more than twice, the selection will be extended more
10 and more.
11
12 To get a selection that is very similar to the old code, try this
13 pattern:
14
15 URxvt.selection.pattern-0: ([^"&'()*,;<=>?@[\\\\]^`{|})]+)
16
17 Please also note that the *LeftClick Shift-LeftClik* combination
18 also selects words like the old code.
19
20 I don't like the new selection/popups/hotkeys/perl, how do I
21 change/disable it?
22 You can disable the perl extension completely by setting the
23 perl-ext-common resource to the empty string, which also keeps
24 rxvt-unicode from initialising perl, saving memory.
25
26 If you only want to disable specific features, you first have to
27 identify which perl extension is responsible. For this, read the
28 section PREPACKAGED EXTENSIONS in the rxvtperl(3) manpage. For
29 example, to disable the selection-popup and option-popup, specify
30 this perl-ext-common resource:
31
32 URxvt.perl-ext-common: default,-selection-popup,-option-popup
33
34 This will keep the default extensions, but disable the two popup
35 extensions. Some extensions can also be configured, for example,
36 scrollback search mode is triggered by M-s. You can move it to any
37 other combination either by setting the searchable-scrollback
38 resource:
39
40 URxvt.searchable-scrollback: CM-s
41
42 Isn't rxvt supposed to be small? Don't all those features bloat?
43 I often get asked about this, and I think, no, they didn't cause
44 extra bloat. If you compare a minimal rxvt and a minimal urxvt, you
45 can see that the urxvt binary is larger (due to some encoding tables
46 always being compiled in), but it actually uses less memory (RSS)
47 after startup. Even with "--disable-everything", this comparison is
48 a bit unfair, as many features unique to urxvt (locale, encoding
49 conversion, iso14755 etc.) are already in use in this mode.
50
51 text data bss drs rss filename
52 98398 1664 24 15695 1824 rxvt --disable-everything
53 188985 9048 66616 18222 1788 urxvt --disable-everything
54
55 When you "--enable-everything" (which _is_ unfair, as this involves
56 xft and full locale/XIM support which are quite bloaty inside libX11
57 and my libc), the two diverge, but not unreasnobaly so.
58
59 text data bss drs rss filename
60 163431 2152 24 20123 2060 rxvt --enable-everything
61 1035683 49680 66648 29096 3680 urxvt --enable-everything
62
63 The very large size of the text section is explained by the
64 east-asian encoding tables, which, if unused, take up disk space but
65 nothing else and can be compiled out unless you rely on X11 core
66 fonts that use those encodings. The BSS size comes from the 64k
67 emergency buffer that my c++ compiler allocates (but of course
68 doesn't use unless you are out of memory). Also, using an xft font
69 instead of a core font immediately adds a few megabytes of RSS. Xft
70 indeed is responsible for a lot of RSS even when not used.
71
72 Of course, due to every character using two or four bytes instead of
73 one, a large scrollback buffer will ultimately make rxvt-unicode use
74 more memory.
75
76 Compared to e.g. Eterm (5112k), aterm (3132k) and xterm (4680k),
77 this still fares rather well. And compared to some monsters like
78 gnome-terminal (21152k + extra 4204k in separate processes) or
79 konsole (22200k + extra 43180k in daemons that stay around after
80 exit, plus half a minute of startup time, including the hundreds of
81 warnings it spits out), it fares extremely well *g*.
82
83 Why C++, isn't that unportable/bloated/uncool?
84 Is this a question? :) It comes up very often. The simple answer is:
85 I had to write it, and C++ allowed me to write and maintain it in a
86 fraction of the time and effort (which is a scarce resource for me).
87 Put even shorter: It simply wouldn't exist without C++.
88
89 My personal stance on this is that C++ is less portable than C, but
90 in the case of rxvt-unicode this hardly matters, as its portability
91 limits are defined by things like X11, pseudo terminals, locale
92 support and unix domain sockets, which are all less portable than
93 C++ itself.
94
95 Regarding the bloat, see the above question: It's easy to write
96 programs in C that use gobs of memory, an certainly possible to
97 write programs in C++ that don't. C++ also often comes with large
98 libraries, but this is not necessarily the case with GCC. Here is
99 what rxvt links against on my system with a minimal config:
100
101 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
102 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaadde000)
103 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab01d000)
104 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
105
106 And here is rxvt-unicode:
107
108 libX11.so.6 => /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00002aaaaabc3000)
109 libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00002aaaaada2000)
110 libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00002aaaaaeb0000)
111 libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00002aaaab0ee000)
112 /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00002aaaaaaab000)
113
114 No large bloated libraries (of course, none were linked in
115 statically), except maybe libX11 :)
116
117 Does it support tabs, can I have a tabbed rxvt-unicode?
118 rxvt-unicode does not directly support tabs. It will work fine with
119 tabbing functionality of many window managers or similar tabbing
120 programs, and its embedding-features allow it to be embedded into
121 other programs, as witnessed by doc/rxvt-tabbed or the upcoming
122 "Gtk2::URxvt" perl module, which features a tabbed urxvt (murxvt)
123 terminal as an example embedding application.
124
2 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using? 125 How do I know which rxvt-unicode version I'm using?
3 The version number is displayed with the usage (-h). Also the escape 126 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. 127 sequence "ESC [ 8 n" sets the window title to the version number.
128 When using the rxvtc client, the version displayed is that of the
129 daemon.
5 130
6 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem... 131 I am using Debian GNU/Linux and have a problem...
7 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large 132 The Debian GNU/Linux package of rxvt-unicode in sarge contains large
8 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode. 133 patches that considerably change the behaviour of rxvt-unicode.
9 Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please 134 Before reporting a bug to the original rxvt-unicode author please
15 140
16 For other problems that also affect the Debian package, you can and 141 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 142 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 143 also a bug in the Debian version and it serves as a reminder for
19 other users that might encounter the same issue. 144 other users that might encounter the same issue.
145
146 I am maintaining rxvt-unicode for distribution/OS XXX, any
147 recommendation?
148 You should build one binary with the default options. configure now
149 enables most useful options, and the trend goes to making them
150 runtime-switchable, too, so there is usually no drawback to enbaling
151 them, except higher disk and possibly memory usage. The perl
152 interpreter should be enabled, as important functionality (menus,
153 selection, likely more in the future) depends on it.
154
155 You should not overwrite the "perl-ext-common" snd "perl-ext"
156 resources system-wide (except maybe with "defaults"). This will
157 result in useful behaviour. If your distribution aims at low memory,
158 add an empty "perl-ext-common" resource to the app-defaults file.
159 This will keep the perl interpreter disabled until the user enables
160 it.
161
162 If you can/want build more binaries, I recommend building a minimal
163 one with "--disable-everything" (very useful) and a maximal one with
164 "--enable-everything" (less useful, it will be very big due to a lot
165 of encodings built-in that increase download times and are rarely
166 used).
167
168 I need to make it setuid/setgid to support utmp/ptys on my OS, is this
169 safe?
170 Likely not. While I honestly try to make it secure, and am probably
171 not bad at it, I think it is simply unreasonable to expect all of
172 freetype + fontconfig + xft + xlib + perl + ... + rxvt-unicode
173 itself to all be secure. Also, rxvt-unicode disables some options
174 when it detects that it runs setuid or setgid, which is not nice.
175 Besides, with the embedded perl interpreter the possibility for
176 security problems easily multiplies.
177
178 Elevated privileges are only required for utmp and pty operations on
179 some systems (for example, GNU/Linux doesn't need any extra
180 privileges for ptys, but some need it for utmp support). It is
181 planned to mvoe this into a forked handler process, but this is not
182 yet done.
183
184 So, while setuid/setgid operation is supported and not a problem on
185 your typical single-user-no-other-logins unix desktop, always
186 remember that its an awful lot of code, most of which isn't checked
187 for security issues regularly.
20 188
21 When I log-in to another system it tells me about missing terminfo data? 189 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 190 The terminal description used by rxvt-unicode is not as widely
23 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same 191 available as that for xterm, or even rxvt (for which the same
24 problem often arises). 192 problem often arises).
412 580
413 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do? 581 My input method wants <some encoding> but I want UTF-8, what can I do?
414 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest 582 You can specify separate locales for the input method and the rest
415 of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale": 583 of the terminal, using the resource "imlocale":
416 584
417 URxvt*imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP 585 URxvt.imlocale: ja_JP.EUC-JP
418 586
419 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and 587 Now you can start your terminal with "LC_CTYPE=ja_JP.UTF-8" and
420 still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not 588 still use your input method. Please note, however, that you will not
421 be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then, 589 be able to input characters outside "EUC-JP" in a normal way then,
422 as your input method limits you. 590 as your input method limits you.
465 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works. 633 Mouse cut/paste suddenly no longer works.
466 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing 634 Make sure that mouse reporting is actually turned off since killing
467 some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode. 635 some editors prematurely may leave the mouse in mouse report mode.
468 I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise 636 I've heard that tcsh may use mouse reporting unless it otherwise
469 specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt 637 specified. A quick check is to see if cut/paste works when the Alt
470 or Shift keys are depressed. See rxvt(7) 638 or Shift keys are depressed.
471 639
472 What's with this bold/blink stuff? 640 What's with this bold/blink stuff?
473 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using 641 If no bold colour is set via "colorBD:", bold will invert text using
474 the standard foreground colour. 642 the standard foreground colour.
475 643
561 729
562 # use Backspace = ^? 730 # use Backspace = ^?
563 $ stty erase ^? 731 $ stty erase ^?
564 $ rxvt 732 $ rxvt
565 733
566 Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l" as documented in rxvt(7). 734 Toggle with "ESC [ 36 h" / "ESC [ 36 l".
567 735
568 For an existing rxvt-unicode: 736 For an existing rxvt-unicode:
569 737
570 # use Backspace = ^H 738 # use Backspace = ^H
571 $ stty erase ^H 739 $ stty erase ^H

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