Terminal in developer mode is horrible.

Question

4

Terminal in developer mode is horrible.

Tracked by Jolla (In progress)

terminal

asked 2019-01-27 13:05:39 +0300

DrDweeb
681 ●13 ●24 ●27

updated 2019-01-28 10:01:38 +0300

jiit

2678 ●32 ●58 ●59

admin

This is a repeat of what I posted in the blog:

I checked, it’s 2019 and the VT102 had it’s 40th anniversary last August. The command line interface to an OS has been around for a while.

So why is the terminal provided so bad?

I mean, it is AWFUL.

Responsiveness is horrible, characters disappear, the popup indicator of which key is struck doesn’t understand case and after an installation that sends output to the screen it is unusable and in some sort of split screen schizophrenic state.

If I am going to have to install EVERY TIME via the terminal, can we have a decent terminal please?

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Comments

13

Thank you for these constructive remarks. Fingerterm is opensource and can be improved at will by you or any other person who would like to spend time on it. Would you give proper details of your concerns, how to reproduce, faulty behaviour and expected outcome ?

Here are the merge requests that have been accepted in the past years. Some are bug fixes, others are improvements.

Damien Caliste ( 2019-01-28 10:23:31 +0300 )edit

I was unaware that the terminal provided by SFOS was an open source project. My tolerance level is higher for community projects versus commercial.

TBH, the princile frustration is that I need to use the terminal at all!

Simply using the terminal on an Xperia X to install SFOS demonstrates the issues raised quite adequately.

DrDweeb ( 2019-01-28 14:57:50 +0300 )edit

1

@DrDweeb What do you mean by "using the terminal to install SFOS"?

ossi1967 ( 2019-01-28 15:29:22 +0300 )edit

3

Indeed, proper bug report would speed up the process to correct the issue. I'm not using much the terminal, mostly speaking with the phone through SSH… For the few times that a terminal on the phone was required, I didn't experience any issue, so I won't be able to help solving them without proper description (step to reproduce mainly…).

Damien Caliste ( 2019-01-28 16:18:22 +0300 )edit

https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005795474-Installing-an-OS-update-fails-download-worked-

1) the popup indicator of which key is struck doesn’t understand shifted letters 2) output to the screen after installation makes the screen unreadable, text overlayed the input line, bizarre screen formatting 3) It is really slooow

DrDweeb ( 2019-01-28 16:22:44 +0300 )edit

Thank you for these constructive remarks. Fingerterm is opensource and can be improved at will by you or any other person who would like to spend time on it. Would you give proper details of your concerns, how to reproduce, faulty behaviour and expected outcome ?
Here are the merge requests that have been accepted in the past years. Some are bug fixes, others are improvements.
Damien Caliste ( 2019-01-28 10:23:31 +0300 )edit
I was unaware that the terminal provided by SFOS was an open source project. My tolerance level is higher for community projects versus commercial.
TBH, the princile frustration is that I need to use the terminal at all!
Simply using the terminal on an Xperia X to install SFOS demonstrates the issues raised quite adequately.
DrDweeb ( 2019-01-28 14:57:50 +0300 )edit
@DrDweeb What do you mean by "using the terminal to install SFOS"?
ossi1967 ( 2019-01-28 15:29:22 +0300 )edit
Indeed, proper bug report would speed up the process to correct the issue. I'm not using much the terminal, mostly speaking with the phone through SSH… For the few times that a terminal on the phone was required, I didn't experience any issue, so I won't be able to help solving them without proper description (step to reproduce mainly…).
Damien Caliste ( 2019-01-28 16:18:22 +0300 )edit
https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005795474-Installing-an-OS-update-fails-download-worked-
1) the popup indicator of which key is struck doesn’t understand shifted letters 2) output to the screen after installation makes the screen unreadable, text overlayed the input line, bizarre screen formatting 3) It is really slooow
DrDweeb ( 2019-01-28 16:22:44 +0300 )edit

Answer 1

8

answered 2019-02-06 16:06:09 +0300

Damien Caliste
6535 ●105 ●139 ●161

https://github.com/dcalis...

updated 2019-02-18 14:46:36 +0300

Edit 2019-02-18: MR was accepted and tagged after review by @pvuorela.

For the easiest complain, here is the MR fixing the pop-up not displaying capitalized version of letters when shift is active: https://git.merproject.org/mer-core/fingerterm/merge_requests/28

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Answer 2

5

answered 2019-02-06 22:31:50 +0300

MartinK
18500 ●154 ●178 ●174

This might be off-topic, but I don't think the currently available terminal emulator we have on Sailfish OS is bad, rather I do think it's the best mobile terminal emulator I have ever used and seems to work well for my use cases.

I guess, this could be due to limited experience with mainstream mobile platforms, such as iOS/Android. But even in such a case, you still have to actively seek and install such applications, they are not installed automatically for you and at least on Android, the integration of the terminal emulator with the actual system was lacking. And as always, mainstream mobile applications have much bigger potential user base, not to mention sources of funding, so comparing a mainstream mobile applications with huge user base with a native Sailfish OS application might not always be fair.

Even then there are exceptions and IMHO at least in the navigation area Sailfish OS applications are definitely reaching parity if not exceeding what mainstream mobile navigation apps can do.

In any case the terminal application is open source & accepts user contributions, so the most constructive thing is to report issues to the upstream tracker an/or even better send patches to fix them. :)

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Answer 3

4

answered 2019-01-27 13:35:25 +0300

Dylan Van Assche

3781 ●75 ●105 ●124

https://www.dylanvanassch...

There's an alternative on Openrepos: ToeTerm if that's more your thing.

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I installed Storeman and went looking for ToeTerm. I was required to install another repository (ROZZ ?). Installation then failed, a rather long missing file message

DrDweeb ( 2019-01-27 14:48:47 +0300 )edit

@DrDweeb: quick guess, first make sure 'ssu re' tells you you're on 3.0.1.11, then do 'pkcon refresh'. Then try installing ToeTerm again, and it'll work.

nthn ( 2019-01-27 15:37:05 +0300 )edit

1

Go to your old terminal. devel-su, then pkcon refresh. Try installation again.

yomark ( 2019-01-27 15:39:06 +0300 )edit

Toeterm is an improvement, if only for the one main difference - the 'never' option for kb timeout. Fingerterm's max 10 seconds is way too short. Besides that, Toeterm has the same issues with actually using the keyboard - unresponsive keys; some keys that show popup, while others don't; getting your current line stuck in the middle of the previous lines, because it just decided not to jump to the bottom line for some reason. I'd say it's a pretty valid issue, but exaggerated complaining usually doesn't speed up progress...

Levone1 ( 2019-01-27 18:43:10 +0300 )edit

As a software developer, I would say "AWFUL" is not an exaggeration, I'll give the suggestions a shot and should I get an installation, test the terminal. Nor do I think my post was "exaggerated complaining"

Cheers!

DrDweeb ( 2019-01-27 19:04:13 +0300 )edit

Accepted Answer

2

answered 2019-02-07 00:04:02 +0300

deloptes

1366 ●36 ●66 ●62

Don't know what you mean by VT102. All I see here is xterm

[nemo@Sailfish ~]$ cat /etc/sailfish-release
NAME="Sailfish OS"
ID=sailfishos
VERSION="3.0.1.11 (Sipoonkorpi)"
VERSION_ID=3.0.1.11
PRETTY_NAME="Sailfish OS 3.0.1.11 (Sipoonkorpi)"
SAILFISH_BUILD=11
SAILFISH_FLAVOUR=release
HOME_URL="https://sailfishos.org/"
[nemo@Sailfish ~]$ echo $TERM
xterm

and it is the same from SSH and from the terminal I have installed on the phone. I have installed

[nemo@Sailfish ~]$ rpm -qa | grep term
fingerterm-1.3.7-1.3.2.jolla.armv7hl

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Comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xterm

That you don't know what a VT102 is, or why it is relevant is a bit sad more than anything else. The VT102 is pretty much the reference standard for screen escape sequences.

DrDweeb ( 2019-02-20 03:47:18 +0300 )edit

I did not say I do not know what VT102 is, but that I see xterm as terminal

deloptes ( 2019-02-23 12:24:51 +0300 )edit

Answer 5

1

answered 2019-01-28 09:30:37 +0300

tortoisedoc

11414 ●172 ●269 ●287

http://kastlunger.blogspo...

Less is more.

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Good motto, eh? -- What I don't understand is, that OP doesn't ssh into the phone. Much easier than bother with the smallish terminal window.

chappi ( 2019-02-18 21:07:48 +0300 )edit

Indeed it would be, but I don't always have my Mac handy and using terminal keeps the process local, not always a bad point of departure for doing a software installation!

DrDweeb ( 2019-02-20 03:49:49 +0300 )edit

Answer 6

1

answered 2019-02-19 16:41:41 +0300

alloj
2067 ●72 ●90 ●98

I don't think the terminal is horrible compared to let's say Android terminal programs. It can be improved but to say it is horrible is overstatement.

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I would even recommend rewording this issue - maybe "developer mode terminal app improvements" ?

MartinK ( 2019-02-20 01:40:52 +0300 )edit

Terminal in developer mode is horrible.

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