Re: Strange characters produced by M-x in emacs -nw

[Dale Snell <ddsnell@frontier.com>]

On Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:51:55 -0400
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> aurelien@replicant.io (Aurélien DESBRIÈRES) writes:
> 
> > Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
> >> (I hope these characters are reproduced in this post)
> >>
> >> `M-x' produces   'ø'
> >> `M-Shift + !' produces '¡'
> >> `M-shift + :  produces 'º'
> >>
> >> What kind of setting is likely to be causing this?
> 
> [...]
> 
> Aurélien Wrote
> > xterm*metaSendsEscape: true
> >
> > to your ~/.Xresources
> >
> > should correct your trouble.
> 
> doesn't seem to do a thing here:
> 
> grep 'xterm\*meta' ~/.Xresources
> 
>   xterm*metaSendsEscape:	true
>      
> Followed by closing down X and restarting with startx.
> 
> but still if I run `emacs -nw' in an xterm:
> 
> And try to press Alt-x, I get this:
> 
>   `ø'
> 
> I haven't worked on the other cures yet, but pretty sure changing
> xmodmap will do the job... just wanted to mention that your suggestion
> seems not to work here.
> 
> Env is: Debian Linux running on PC (an older P4) using
> the real xterm... not any of the pretenders.
> 
>  xterm -version
> XTerm(295)

It looks to me like you've got Alt conflated with Meta.  The two
modifiers are NOT the same.  Check .xmodmap / .xmodmaprc to see how X
is set up.  Also, you don't say what desktop manager you're using,
Gnome, LXDE, whatever.  Note that DEs also do keymapping, but
separately from the .xmodmaprc file (and each other).

Just out of curiosity, if you type ESC-x instead of ALT-x, what do you
get?  If things are set up correctly, you should get "M-x " in the
minibuffer, waiting for an extended command.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual
way.  This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of
complaining.    -- Jeff Raskin