Re: Meta key definition in a linux console

[Helmut Eller]

* Olivier Sirven [2009-08-20 11:42+0200] writes:

> Hello there,
>
> I run a Mac laptop with emacs 23 and everything is just fine, my meta
> key is defined to my command key and I'm happy with it. But when I
> ssh to a distant linux machine and run an emacs 23 session in console
> mode I don't have any other ways to access meta but by using ESC key
> which is far from being an ergonomical solution. 
> As this emacs version is compiled for linux, there is no such variable
> as "mac-command-modifier" and I don't know how to tell emacs (or the
> console) to use the command key as meta.
>
> Any ideas would be just great!

Usually you have to set the proper TERM environment variable on the
remote machine and the remote machine needs the have an terminfo entry
for the value that you specify with TERM.  The terminfo database is
usually stored under /usr/share/terminfo (on the remote machine because
Emacs needs to read it.)

For Apple's terminal.app you can try: export TERM=Apple_Terminal 
on the Linux box.  You can also try nsterm or vt100.

I'm not familiar with Apple products and whether Meta can be used in
Emacs depends on the description in the terminfo database.  For a long
time even the entries for xterm weren't very good and the Apple stuff is
most likely pretty bad.  Terminal.app might also have some menu which
let's you say "send esc for meta".  But that's only a workaround for
broken terminfo descriptions.

Helmut