terminator_vs_ubuntu_18.10_-_broadcast_issue [pswiki]

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====== terminator vs ubuntu 18/20 - broadcast issue ======
terminator is a very good graphical terminal emulator for linux. Its main advantage is that it allows to split the screen into several terminal windows and add tabs with additional split screens. On top of that, on can broadcast from one terminal to others. 
===== Problem =====
There is an issue with broadcasting in ubuntu 18.10 with its standard desktop environment. every key that is pressed in the sending terminal is written twice in the receiving ones. 
===== Reason =====
somehow terminator seems to have issues when ibus is involved
===== Solution =====
we need to make sure that terminator does not use ibus. this is done differently in ubuntu 18 and ubuntu 20: 

==== ubuntu 18 (tested with 18.10 but should also work with 18.04) ====
as pointed out in [[https://bugs.launchpad.net/terminator/+bug/1318542/comments/26|a comment on a but report]] related to this issue, one can  unset the ''GTK_IM_MODULE'' environment variable prior to starting terminator which will work around the problem. 

==== ubuntu 20.04 ====
here we need to unset ''DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'' for terminator to work correctly

==== the script: ====
the problem with the proposed alias is, that this only works if you start terminator through a bash shell. however, if you click the launcher icon in gnome it is ignored.

my solution was to creat a wrapper script ''/usr/local/bin/terminator'' whith the following contents: 
<code bash /usr/local/bin/terminator>
#!/bin/bash
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS="" GTK_IM_MODULE="" /usr/bin/terminator
</code>
don't forget to make it executable :) 
  chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/terminator

the reason why this is saved to ''/usr/local/bin'' is, that this directory is listed in the ''PATH'' variable before ''/usr/bin'' is listed where the actual terminator binary resides. hence, when someone starts terminator wihtout providing a full path, our wrapper script will be launched first. 

you can see in ''/usr/share/applications/terminator.desktop'' that the gnome launcher does not call terminator by its full path but rather by the executable name, so our hack will work. 

we could have also renamed the actual binary and then saved the wrapper in its place, or we could have modified the launcher file, but both of these solutions will probably brake on each update of terminator, while our little hack, although not pretty, will survive updates as well. 

===== Other problems =====
==== Thinlinc ====
if you are using thinlinc to connect to your linux machine, thinlinc will not source ''/etc/environment'' to start building the ''PATH'' variable but it will use its own initial calue for ''PATH'' as defined in ''/opt/thinlinc/etc/conf.d/vsmagent.hconf'' and unfortunately by default it will check ''/bin'' before ''/usr/bin/local'' which makes the above script useless. the simplest solution is to adjust the order of directories in that config file so taht ''/usr/local/bin'' is checked first. here is an example, what a working PATH may look like in ''vsmagent.hconf''
  PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/opt/thinlinc/bin:/usr/bin/X11

after changin this, you need to completely end your remote gnome session and start a new one for this change to take effect.

==== split-screen shortcut ctrl+shift+e not working ====
if terminator works with ibus active, you can experience a strange behaviour when using the ctrl+shift+e shortcut to split screens: you will get an underlined "__e__" and the terminal behaves strange until you press escape. this is because this same shurtcut is used by ibus to write emojis. you can change the ibus shurtcut by running 
  ibus-setup
then go to the emoji tab and either change or remove the shortcut