[sf-lug] A problem of spacing with terminal

[Akkana Peck]

Bobbie Sellers writes:
> Hi LUGers,
> 
>     I am having a problem with terminal windows in that the cursor is coming
> up
> on screen about 5 spaces to the left of where the typed characters will
> appear.
> This is somewhat annoying.

It might help to mention what terminal program you're using.
There are a bazillion of them and they're all different. However:

> When I use su - to go into root the spaces are cut back to about 2 from
> where the characters will appear.

Perhaps you have backspaces or similar movement characters in your
prompt? Try this:
PS1='$ '
and see if the problem goes away. If not, it might not hurt to try
RPS1=''

If it's not the prompt, it's probably still some configuration file
you have. Try renaming .bashrc and see if it still happens. If not,
that's your problem, and you can use "divide and conquer": remove
the last half of the file and see if it still happens (of course,
make a backup of the file first); if so, remove half of what remains
and try again. That's a fast way to narrow down which part of the
file is causing the problem. If it's not the .bashrc (or other files
like .profile), try creating a new account with all defaults, then
add your dot files one by one and see which file is causing the problem.

        ...Akkana