WARNING: terminal is not fully functional

WARNING: terminal is not fully functional

[Jeffrey Walton]

Hi Everyone,

I needed to install Git on Ubuntu 8. Git seems to work Ok for most
task, but this is unusual:

    $ git diff
    WARNING: terminal is not fully functional
    -  (press RETURN)

Here's the terminal:

    $ echo $TERM
    xterm-256color

It seems like loss of colors on an old platform is not that important.
However, the message being printed creates an actionable item that
needs attention. I think no message would be a better option.

Jeff

Re: WARNING: terminal is not fully functional

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> writes:

> I needed to install Git on Ubuntu 8. Git seems to work Ok for most
> task, but this is unusual:
>
>     $ git diff
>     WARNING: terminal is not fully functional
>     -  (press RETURN)
>
> Here's the terminal:
>
>     $ echo $TERM
>     xterm-256color

A short answer.  You are using "less" as the pager, but it is not
working with your terminal.  Likely reason is perhaps you are
missing terminfo/termcap database entry for that terminal.

I have working xterm-256color, so

	$ TERM=xterm-256color less README.md

works as expected, but using a (bogus) terminal that no system would
have ever heard of, e.g.

	$ TERM=no-such-terminal-exists less README.md

results in exactly the symptom you are observing.

Something to try quickly would be:

$ export TERM=vt100; less README.md

As the termcap/terminfo entry for vt100 is usually more widely
available, this may unblock you.

> It seems like loss of colors on an old platform is not that important.
> However, the message being printed creates an actionable item that
> needs attention. I think no message would be a better option.

You would want to redirect it to folks who work on "less" ;-)

Re: WARNING: terminal is not fully functional

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 1:15 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I needed to install Git on Ubuntu 8. Git seems to work Ok for most
> > task, but this is unusual:
> >
> >     $ git diff
> >     WARNING: terminal is not fully functional
> >     -  (press RETURN)
> >
> > Here's the terminal:
> >
> >     $ echo $TERM
> >     xterm-256color
>
> A short answer.  You are using "less" as the pager, but it is not
> working with your terminal.  Likely reason is perhaps you are
> missing terminfo/termcap database entry for that terminal.
>
> I have working xterm-256color, so
>
>         $ TERM=xterm-256color less README.md
>
> works as expected, but using a (bogus) terminal that no system would
> have ever heard of, e.g.
>
>         $ TERM=no-such-terminal-exists less README.md
>
> results in exactly the symptom you are observing.
>
> Something to try quickly would be:
>
> $ export TERM=vt100; less README.md
>
> As the termcap/terminfo entry for vt100 is usually more widely
> available, this may unblock you.
>
> > It seems like loss of colors on an old platform is not that important.
> > However, the message being printed creates an actionable item that
> > needs attention. I think no message would be a better option.
>
> You would want to redirect it to folks who work on "less" ;-)

Oh, sorry about that.

Jeff

Re: WARNING: terminal is not fully functional

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> writes:

> On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 1:15 AM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>>
>> Jeffrey Walton <noloader@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > I needed to install Git on Ubuntu 8. Git seems to work Ok for most
>> > task, but this is unusual:
>> >
>> >     $ git diff
>> >     WARNING: terminal is not fully functional
>> >     -  (press RETURN)
>> >
>> > Here's the terminal:
>> >
>> >     $ echo $TERM
>> >     xterm-256color
>> ...
>> Something to try quickly would be:
>>
>> $ export TERM=vt100; less README.md
>>
>> As the termcap/terminfo entry for vt100 is usually more widely
>> available, this may unblock you.
>> 
>> > It seems like loss of colors on an old platform is not that important.
>> > However, the message being printed creates an actionable item that
>> > needs attention. I think no message would be a better option.
>>
>> You would want to redirect it to folks who work on "less" ;-)
>
> Oh, sorry about that.

No need to be sorry for that.

I seem to have these terminfo database entries for terminals whose
name begin with 'x':

    $ /bin/ls /lib/terminfo/x
    xterm
    xterm-256color
    xterm-color
    xterm-debian
    xterm-mono
    xterm-r5
    xterm-r6
    xterm-vt220
    xterm-xfree86

my suspicion is that you are lacking xterm-256color for some reason.
These usually come from ncurses-base package if I am not mistaken.