Running Emacs without any display server

Running Emacs without any display server

[Abhiseck Paira]

Hi,
I was trying to run Emacs without any display server (like Xorg or
wayland) (So I was running Emacs in a tty). Emacs started as expected
but the Alt (Meta) key wasn't working. So I couldn't do 'Alt-x' to do
'M-x' (so I had to do Esc-x instead). Similarly other key combinations
involving Alt key didn't work either (Alt-v, Alt-f etc). Does anyone
know why this is happeing or how to fix this?
-- 
Abhisek Paira
E34E 825B 979E EB9F 8505  F80E E93D 353B 7740 0709
"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[Filipp Gunbin]

On 19/05/2021 00:19 +0530, Abhiseck Paira wrote:

> Hi,
> I was trying to run Emacs without any display server (like Xorg or
> wayland) (So I was running Emacs in a tty). Emacs started as expected
> but the Alt (Meta) key wasn't working. So I couldn't do 'Alt-x' to do
> 'M-x' (so I had to do Esc-x instead). Similarly other key combinations
> involving Alt key didn't work either (Alt-v, Alt-f etc). Does anyone
> know why this is happeing or how to fix this?
> --
> Abhisek Paira
> E34E 825B 979E EB9F 8505  F80E E93D 353B 7740 0709
> "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

But you don't say where you run Emacs.  For example, here in macOS's
Terminal app, I had to tick "Use Option as Meta key" to make it work.

Filipp

Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[Abhiseck Paira]

> But you don't say where you run Emacs.  For example, here in macOS's
> Terminal app, I had to tick "Use Option as Meta key" to make it work.

I run Emacs on GNU/Linux.

Also I have no problem runnning Emacs in a terminal emulator. And almost
all of the time I run the GUI version of Emacs. My problem comes when I
try to run it without any display server (Desktop environment).

-- 
Abhisek Paira
E34E 825B 979E EB9F 8505  F80E E93D 353B 7740 0709
"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[Abhiseck Paira]

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> Which distro are you using? I'm on Slackware current and I just tried
> running emacs in a tty and alt works as expected.

I run Parabola, an Arch based distibution. But Emacs is installed using
Guix package manager. I'd have said so but I thought it will be same
across all distributions. Also I am running Emacs version 27.2 and the
problem exist even when I run with emacs -Q option.

-- 
Abhisek Paira
E34E 825B 979E EB9F 8505  F80E E93D 353B 7740 0709
"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

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Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[Jean Louis]

* Abhiseck Paira <abhiseckpaira@disroot.org> [2021-05-19 05:54]:
> 
> 
> > Which distro are you using? I'm on Slackware current and I just tried
> > running emacs in a tty and alt works as expected.
> 
> I run Parabola, an Arch based distibution. But Emacs is installed using
> Guix package manager. I'd have said so but I thought it will be same
> across all distributions. Also I am running Emacs version 27.2 and the
> problem exist even when I run with emacs -Q option.

Me too, on one of computers there is Parabola GNU/Linux-libre and
Emacs M-x works in console quite well, but without Guix stuff. On a
remote server I have guix package manager, and Emacs works fine
through terminal. 

I am thinking if it is related maybe to readline and your locale.

-- 
Jean

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Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[tomas]

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On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 07:42:30AM +0530, Abhiseck Paira wrote:
> 
> > But you don't say where you run Emacs.  For example, here in macOS's
> > Terminal app, I had to tick "Use Option as Meta key" to make it work.
> 
> I run Emacs on GNU/Linux.
> 
> Also I have no problem runnning Emacs in a terminal emulator. And almost
> all of the time I run the GUI version of Emacs. My problem comes when I
> try to run it without any display server (Desktop environment).

You are running it in the Linux console? FWIW, "mine" works (I know,
but I could otherwise try to reproduce your problem).

Perhaps this [1] (search for the section "Linux Console") or [2]
are helpful.

In a nutshell: the Linux console is configurable, there is loadkeys
and dumpkeys.

HTH

[1] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/MetaKeyProblems
[2] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/LinuxConsoleKeys

 - t

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Re: Running Emacs without any display server

[Abhiseck Paira]

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> You are running it in the Linux console?
Yes.

> In a nutshell: the Linux console is configurable, there is loadkeys
> and dumpkeys.
Thanks your for your help. I have looked into it and I think this is the
way forward.

-- 
Abhisek Paira
E34E 825B 979E EB9F 8505  F80E E93D 353B 7740 0709
"There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels."

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