[COLUG] I hate backspace

[Jeff McCune]

I can't for the life of me figure out why when I type:

  screen
  # Gives me a bash shell, where I type:
  jed
  # gives me jed, which works great.  Backspace works fine.

However:

  screen jed
  # gives me a jed that doesn't understand how to backspace.  I get help
  # instead.

I've been using *nix going on 7 years now, and I've got to confess...  I've
never figured out the backspace problem.  It's been one of those things that
works for me 98% of the time, so I never bothered to master the following
flow, which I think is complete (Please correct me if I'm missing elements)

1: KB interrupt
2:   -> kernel (multi-layered?)
3:     -> X11
4:       -> xterm
5:         -> bash (optional?)
6:           -> screen
7:             -> bash (optional?)
8:			  -> mutt/jed

So here's the problem, as I see it (I may be thinking about this wrong).
I'm trying to create a script called screen_mutt which will bring up an
already existing email screen, and detach any remote viewers, or spawn a
new one.  This aspect works great. the "script" is a one liner:

  screen -D -RR -S EMAIL mutt

This seems to spawn mutt directly from screen without a bash shell around
it.  This is why I have item #7 flagged as optional.  This seems to be the
cause of my trouble.  Item #5 I have as optional as well because I can have
my xterm spawn screen as a shell rather than spawn bash and I type screen
within that bash shell.

So, I've also tried to play with:

  screen -D -RR -S EMAIL /bin/bash --login -c mutt

In order to force item #7 into the equation.  It didn't seem to work as I
expected.  Basically, backspace works great for everything for me right
now...  except if I have screen launch mutt directly, without first spawning
a bash shell.

I suspect that this has something to do with the TERMCAP that screen sets
up, but this is where I never bothered to learn what the difference between
TERMCAP and terminfo was, and how and when they're used.  Every time I
tried, I got outdated docs.  Can someone point me to a doc that's got a good
explanation of how input is *currently* handled in modern unix systems?  Or
if that's not possible because they all still do it differently, perhaps
Debian and Fedora?

Regards,
-- 
Jeff McCune
System Support
OSU Department of Mathematics
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-key BAF3211A
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