Hacker News

points by Systemerror7A69 4 days ago | 0 comments

Oh wow, I did not expect not only that many interesting changes, but also that many which seem actually specifically useful to me - very cool to read!

I love kitty, have used it for a long while now and pretty happy, except for that one thing about ssh xterm - but even that is mostly minor.

Really cool to see such active development of an already perfectly capable and working software.

[–] xnickb 4 days ago

I've had so many issues with SSH that I ended up ghosttying kitty.

[–] cybrox 4 days ago

Fixed with a single alias or a single ssh config entry.

[–] xnickb 4 days ago

If you mean the `alias ssh="kitty +kitten ssh"` then no, it's not fixed at all.

For example pikvm exists with read-only mounted filesystem. Having to dive into the details to figure out that the issue is kitty trying to write a file to make some obscure terminal features work doesn't strike me as good design.

`alias ssh="TERM=xterm-256color ssh"` fixes it but isn't mentioned in the docs.

[–] KetoManx64 1 day ago

> TERM=xterm-256color ssh

Yep, i switched to kitty a few months ago and Claude dug around and found the solution external to the docs. The developer is very opinionated about how he thinks you should use Kitty.

[–] Geezus_42 4 days ago

Ghostty made that obvious in the documentation for me. I haven't looked at the kitty docs, so Idk if they do as well.

[–] wzdd 4 days ago

It’s actually fixed, for everything, with a single kitty config line which tells it to use xterm-256color as the terminal type.

I respect the man’s ideological correctness, but it’s not 1982 anymore and nobody is going to add more terminal types.

[–] remedan 4 days ago

Putting the following in my ~/.ssh/config fixed all ssh-related issues I had with kitty.

  Host *
    SetEnv TERM="xterm-256color"

[–] Systemerror7A69 3 days ago

Yes! That was it, exactly. Thank you, I wasn't able to check my home computer at the time of writing my last comment.

[–] JaszHere 4 days ago

Doesn't `kitten ssh` solve the problem?

https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/kittens/ssh/

[–] Geezus_42 4 days ago

Doesn't sound like it would work if connecting to a locked down server. However, the problem OP described is easily solved, for ghostty and kitty, by a single line in your local ssh config.

[–] birdsongs 4 days ago

I have the same SSH qualms. I still use it because there's not much better for what I need.

[–] Systemerror7A69 4 days ago

I believe I got rid of most of the issues with some .ssh setting which simply uses the normal xterm I believe. I can't check right at this moment, but apparently, simply using xterm and not the xterm-xkitty or what it's called does not actually make much problems when ssh-ing into a machine - not in my case at least.

It was a setting in some ~/.ssh config file though I believe, not a kitty setting.

[–] cybrox 4 days ago

I currently just use this in my .zshrc:

alias ssh="kitty +kitten ssh"

sshpass() { TERM=xterm-256color command sshpass "$@"; }

Could also alias sshpass differently but I mostly use that for embedded devices where I just want a simple shell anyways.

The alternative you mean is in ~/.ssh/config:

Host *

    SetEnv TERM="xterm-256color"