I should have been more clear: yes, I am using emacs -nw  when ssh-ed into
the servers.

However, on my local machine, there is a graphical emacs (23.2.1) and when
I do alt-x, it works as expected (M-x)

So the problem only happens over ssh connections

On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:06 AM, suvayu ali <fatkasuvayu+linux@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 02:29, Jai Dayal <dayalsoap@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On fedora 16 xfce, 64-bit, the alt key no longer works as it's supposed
> to
> > for emacs (Meta key). I have to use escape instead. Any idea what's
> happened
> > and how I should fix it?
> >
> > emacs version is 23.2.1
> >
>
> Are you using emacs in the terminal (emacs -nw)? There was a bug in
> vte which caused Alt keys to be neglected for all gtk based terminal
> emulators with the latest version of gtk. Several distros were
> affected (e.g. Debian). If my description matches your problem, see
> comment 20 on this bug report
> <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=626792>.
>
> > Thanks a lot!
> > Jai
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> --
> Suvayu
>
> Open source is the future. It sets us free.
>