not a typewriter

[Animesh Chakraborty]

Hi All,-
I get the following mesg when I type the command "mail"

Not a terminal
stty: : Not a typewriter
stty: : Not a typewriter

What exactly the error means ?
Thanks
Animesh

[eran maor]

Check in .kshrc for any tty and stty commands. You will find you
have a few tty and stty in there.

You shouldn't have this type of command in .kshrc, they need to
be moved to .profile.

1. Removed tty and stty commands from .kshrc and move them to
.profile.

2. Log out.

3. Log back in.

4. Run the at command and it should work fine.

[Steve Steel]

Hi

This sort of message normally comes when a .profile is executed in background and the stty command does not link to a physical tty.

There should be a check in a .profile not to execute the tty specific commands in background.

example
mytty=$(tty)
if [ "$mytty" = "not a tty" ]; then
echo not terminal > /dev/null
else
#
# commands and environment variables not appropriate for desktop
#
# Set up the terminal:
if [ "$TERM" = "" ]
then
eval ` tset -s -Q -m ':?hp' `
else
eval ` tset -s -Q `
fi
stty "1500:5:b70:3b:0:3:1c:8:15:4:0:0:0:1500:5:b70:3b:3:1c:8:15:4:0:0:0:ff:ff:f
f:4:0:1a:11:13:0:0:1a:0:0:18:50"


You should check that mail has not been aliased by a whence mail

Normal
>whence mail
/usr/bin/mail

alias it

>alias mail="ps -ef"
>whence mail
ps -ef


However please note that the message you see is in no way damaging.

regards

Steve Steel

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

Best bet is that you have a stty command in your .kshrc file and it is
getting executed every time you startup a shell, including the vi escape.
Possible fix is "test -t && stty erase ^H".