After a virgin installation (not an upgrade) on a Dell Inspiron 7000 laptop, the "Escape" key is rejected, with a beep from the console and a flash from an xterm. This prevents the use of any key sequence that includes "Escape" key such as "Escape-K" which should activate command recall/editting from bash shell (set -o vi mode). At first, I though this might've been a bash shell change since Redhat 5.2 (installed on another, different system) but I've been unable to find anything that would alter the use of the "Escape" key within the bash shell documentation that I have. Definitely, it's not something that I did intentionally. I've checked the Keytable startup script in /etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/sysconfig/keyboard and they both appear correct. My /etc/sysconfig/keyboard contents are: KEYTABLE="us" In addition, my /var/log/messages confirms that "keytable" is doing something and appears to be correct: Oct 1 07:58:28 vger keytable: Loading keymap: Oct 1 07:58:28 vger keytable: Loading /usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/us.kmap.gz Oct 1 07:58:28 vger keytable: Loading system font: Oct 1 07:58:29 vger rc: Starting keytable succeeded I suspect something is not right about this keymap but I don't understand what it might be. The reason I suspect this is that, right now, I'm using a docking station with an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse and the error is the same with this configuration as it is with the native keyboard on the Dell Inspiron 7000. I've successfully applied all of the Errata packages currently documented, omitting a couple because I don't have the corresponding package installed, starting first with the RPM 3.0.2 package. At this point, I don't know what to do but I really miss command recall/editting and it's starting to really annoy me. Can anyone help me sort this one out, please? Thanks! ------- Additional Comments From 10/03/99 14:12 ------- It seems that vim recognizes the "Escape" key. Now I'm really confused! ------- Additional Comments From 10/03/99 18:36 ------- I've figure out what's causing the problem and have a work-around. I put two and two together and came up with readline, something that I have only a passing knowledge of. The bash shell uses readline for command line editting so I had to figure out what influences readline behavior. It turns out that if INPUTRC environment variable is set, readline will use whatever is set there. In RedHat 6.0, environment variable INPUTRC is set to "/etc/inputrc" which has this contents: set meta-flag on set input-meta on set convert-meta off set output-meta on "\e0d": backward-word "\e0c": forward-word "\e[h": beginning-of-line "\e[f": end-of-line "\e[1~": beginning-of-line "\e[4~": end-of-line "\e[5~": beginning-of-history "\e[6~": end-of-history "\e[3~": delete-char "\e[2~": quoted-insert I checked on a RedHat 5.2 system (my other system that doesn't exhibit the malfunction) and noticed that environment variable INPUTRC is not set by default. So, I traced back to what might be setting it. It's set in "/etc/profile" in RedHat 6.0 but not set there in RedHat 5.2. When I commented that setting out of my RedHat 6.0 "/etc/profile" and rebooted, the problem went away. It seems that whatever is in "/etc/inputrc" traps the "Escape" key as far as readline is concerned. I leave up to you folks to figure out the right thing to do. For my money, not setting INPUTRC (like in RedHat 5.2) would be the thing to do. If anybody knows what exactly is being done in the RedHat 6.0 version of "/etc/inputrc" I'd like to know, just for curiosity's sake. Thanks! ------- Additional Comments From 10/07/99 03:05 ------- I run into the same proble while trying to switch to vi editing mode in bash after installing RedHat 6.0 on my new PC box... Removing INPUTRC from /etc/profile or explicitely unsetting it in ~/.profile effectively fix the annoying >-( bug... ------- Additional Comments From 10/07/99 03:05 ------- I run into the same proble while trying to switch to vi editing mode in bash after installing RedHat 6.0 on my new PC box... Removing INPUTRC from /etc/profile or explicitely unsetting it in ~/.profile effectively fix the annoying >-( bug...
This is fixed in the latest installer code.