This file describes various problems that have been encountered
in compiling, installing and running GNU Emacs.
-* Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font
-
-This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
-2.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
-event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
-Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
-
-A workaround for this is to add something like
-
-emacs.waitForWM: false
-
-to your X resources. or to add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a frame's
-parameter list.
-
-* Underlines appear at the wrong position.
-
-This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
-An example is the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1. To
-circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to
-nil in your .emacs.
-
* Building Emacs with GCC 2.9x fails in the `src' directory.
This may happen if you use a development version of GNU `cpp' from one
#else /* debugging enabled */
+
+* Improving performance with slow X connections
+
+If you don't need X Input Methods (XIM) for entering text in some
+language you use, you can improve performance on WAN links by
+configuring Emacs with option `--without-xim'. Configuring Emacs
+without XIM does not affect the use of Emacs' own input methods, which
+are part of the Leim package.
+
+If the connection is very slow, you might also want to consider
+switching off scroll bars, menu bar, and tool bar.
+
+* Getting a Meta key on the FreeBSD console
+
+By default, neither Alt nor any other key acts as a Meta key on
+FreeBSD, but this can be changed using kbdcontrol(1). Dump the
+current keymap to a file with the command
+
+ $ kbdcontrol -d >emacs.kbd
+
+Edit emacs.kbd, and give the key you want to be the Meta key the
+definition `meta'. For instance, if your keyboard has a ``Windows''
+key with scan code 105, change the line for scan code 105 in emacs.kbd
+to look like this
+
+ 105 meta meta meta meta meta meta meta meta O
+
+to make the Windows key the Meta key. Load the new keymap with
+
+ $ kbdcontrol -l emacs.kbd
+
+* Emacs' xterm-mouse-mode doesn't work on the Gnome terminal.
+
+A symptom of this bug is that double-clicks insert a control sequence
+into the buffer. The reason this happens is an apparent
+incompatibility of the Gnome terminal with Xterm, which also affects
+other programs using the Xterm mouse interface. A problem report has
+been filed.
+
+* Emacs pauses for several seconds when changing the default font
+
+This has been reported for fvwm 2.2.5 and the window manager of KDE
+2.1. The reason for the pause is Xt waiting for a ConfigureNotify
+event from the window manager, which the window manager doesn't send.
+Xt stops waiting after a default timeout of usually 5 seconds.
+
+A workaround for this is to add something like
+
+emacs.waitForWM: false
+
+to your X resources. Alternatively, add `(wait-for-wm . nil)' to a
+frame's parameter list, like this:
+
+ (modify-frame-parameters nil '((wait-for-wm . nil)))
+
+(this should go into your `.emacs' file).
+
+* Underlines appear at the wrong position.
+
+This is caused by fonts having a wrong UNDERLINE_POSITION property.
+An example is the font 7x13 on XFree prior to version 4.1. To
+circumvent this problem, set x-use-underline-position-properties to
+nil in your .emacs.
+
* When using Xaw3d scroll bars without arrows, the very first mouse
click in a scroll bar might be ignored by the scroll bar widget. This
is probably a bug in Xaw3d; when Xaw3d is compiled with arrows, the
Emacs 21.1 built for MS-Windows doesn't support images, the tool bar,
and tooltips. Support for these will be added in future versions.
+Help text that is displayed in a tooltip on other window systems, on
+Windows is printed in the echo area, since tooltips are not yet
+available. Help text for menu items is not displayed at all.
+
There are problems with display if the variable `redisplay-dont-pause'
is set to nil (w32-win.el sets it to t by default, to avoid these
problems). The problems include:
keyboard interrupt event sent by Emacs to Bash. (Older Cygwin ports
of Bash, up to b20.1, did receive SIGINT from Emacs.)
+* Accessing remote files with ange-ftp hangs the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
+
+If the FTP client is the Cygwin port of GNU `ftp', this appears to be
+due to some bug in the Cygwin DLL or some incompatibility between it
+and the implementation of asynchronous subprocesses in the Windows
+port of Emacs. Specifically, some parts of the FTP server responses
+are not flushed out, apparently due to buffering issues, which
+confuses ange-ftp.
+
+The solution is to downgrade to an older version of the Cygwin DLL
+(version 1.3.2 was reported to solve the problem), or use the stock
+Windows FTP client, usually found in the `C:\WINDOWS' directory. To
+force ange-ftp use the stock Windows client, set the variable
+`ange-ftp-ftp-program-name' to the absolute file name of the client's
+executable. For example:
+
+ (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-name "c:/windows/ftp.exe")
+
+If you want to stick with the Cygwin FTP client, you can work around
+this problem by putting this in your `.emacs' file:
+
+ (setq ange-ftp-ftp-program-args '("-i" "-n" "-g" "-v" "--prompt" "")
+
+
* The latest released version of the W3 package doesn't run properly
with Emacs 21 and needs work. However, these problems are already
-fixed in W3's CVS. This patch is reported to make w3-4.0pre.46 work:
+fixed in W3's CVS. The patch below is reported to make w3-4.0pre.46
+work.
+
+Some users report they are unable to byte-compile W3 with Emacs 21.
+If the patches below don't help to resolve your problems, install the
+CVS version of W3, which should be compatible with Emacs 21.
diff -aur --new-file w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-display.el w3-4.0pre.46-new/lisp/w3-display.el
--- w3-4.0pre.46-orig/lisp/w3-display.el Sun Nov 14 22:00:12 1999
+(require 'w3-e19)
+(provide 'w3-e21)
-
* On AIX, if linking fails because libXbsd isn't found, check if you
are compiling with the system's `cc' and CFLAGS containing `-O5'. If
so, you have hit a compiler bug. Please make sure to re-configure
and then choose /usr/bin/netkit-ftp.
+* Antivirus software interacts badly with the MS-Windows version of Emacs.
+
+The usual manifestation of these problems is that subprocesses don't
+work or even wedge the entire system. In particular, "M-x shell RET"
+was reported to fail to work. But other commands also sometimes don't
+work when an antivirus package is installed.
+
+The solution is to switch the antivirus software to a less aggressive
+mode (e.g., disable the ``auto-protect'' feature), or even uninstall
+or disable it entirely.
+
* On Windows 95/98/ME, subprocesses do not terminate properly.
This is a limitation of the Operating System, and can cause problems
exactly what happens, but it isn't an Emacs problem in cases we've
seen.
+* After upgrading to a newer version of Emacs, the Meta key stops working.
+
+This was reported to happen on a GNU/Linux system distributed by
+Mandrake. The reason is that the previous version of Emacs was
+modified by Mandrake to make the Alt key act as the Meta key, on a
+keyboard where the Windows key is the one which produces the Meta
+modifier. A user who started using a newer version of Emacs, which
+was not hacked by Mandrake, expected the Alt key to continue to act as
+Meta, and was astonished when that didn't happen.
+
+The solution is to find out what key on your keyboard produces the Meta
+modifier, and use that key instead. Try all of the keys to the left
+and to the right of the space bar, together with the `x' key, and see
+which combination produces "M-x" in the echo area. You can also use
+the `xmodmap' utility to show all the keys which produce a Meta
+modifier:
+
+ xmodmap -pk | egrep -i "meta|alt"
+
+A more convenient way of finding out which keys produce a Meta modifier
+is to use the `xkbprint' utility, if it's available on your system:
+
+ xkbprint 0:0 /tmp/k.ps
+
+This produces a PostScript file `/tmp/k.ps' with a picture of your
+keyboard; printing that file on a PostScript printer will show what
+keys can serve as Meta.
+
+The `xkeycaps' also shows a visual representation of the current
+keyboard settings. It also allows to modify them.
+
* On OSF/Dec Unix/Tru64/<whatever it is this year> under X locally or
remotely, M-SPC acts as a `compose' key with strange results. See
keyboard(5).