Htop doesn't work in terminals where $TERM=dumb

[Spayder26]

Binary package hint: htop

I've installed htop 0.8.3-1ubuntu1 from universe repository 'cos is the best gui for ps, kill, and more.

But I've seen that it only works on xterm, and where I launch it on any other terminal emulator it shows:
Error opening terminal: unknown.

And exits with code 1.

I've seen that on maverick all terminal emulators (except xterm) have environment TERM setted to dumb, instead xterm which was its value on prior ubuntu releases.

I've exported TERM to xterm and htop worked. So I think the obvious solution is use an env TERM=xterm htop if TERM is dumb.

[David Futcher (bobbo)]

Confirmed. Running htop with "TERM=dumb" opens htop, but it has nothing but the commands along the bottom screen (no process information). However, my TERM is set to "linux" by default. Will send this upstream to see if anything can be done about the dumb bug, but I think your TERM var is being incorrectly set somewhere else.

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

David, have you sent the bug upstream?

At least "TERM=dumb top" (not "htop") works reasonably well.

[Joshua Powers (powersj)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. I appreciate the quality of this bug report and I'm sure it'll be helpful to others experiencing the same issue.

This sounds like an upstream request for a new feature/functionality. The best route to getting it fixed in Ubuntu in this case would be to file an upstream bug if you're able to do that. Otherwise, I'm not sure what we can do directly in Ubuntu to fix the problem.

If you do end up filing an upstream bug, please link to it from here. Thanks!