[CentOS] clicking backspace in centos3 makes ^?

[Robin Mordasiewicz]

On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Tony Schreiner wrote:
> On Nov 30, 2005, at 11:53 AM, Robin Mordasiewicz wrote:
>> On Wed, 30 Nov 2005, Jim Perrin wrote:
>>> On 11/30/05, Robin Mordasiewicz <robin at bullseye.tv> wrote:
>>>> While in centos3, using vim and clicking the backspace I see the ^?
>>>> character instead of it actually deleteing the previous character.
>>>> 
>>>> In centos4 this was not a problem.
>>>> 
>>>> I have rad about remapping keys and such, but can someone tell me what
>>>> the difference between centos4 and centos3 is so I can make the change
>>>> to make it work on centos3.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> This isn't a problem with centos3, but rather with your terminal
>>> emulator. How are you accessing the system?
>>> 
>> 
>> I connect with Putty, and then I execute "screen -D -R"
>> from my screen session I ssh to my boxes.
>> 
>> from the box I run vim on...
>> 
>> [root at smtcorav02 SPECS]# echo $TERM
>> screen
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Should I be adding a termcap for screen or something ?
>
> If you type
> stty -a
> at your remote login, it will tell you what character is being interpreted as 
> erase. I'm guessing, that it is set to ^H, but putty has set your erase 
> character to ^?. So there is a mismatch.
>
> I don't have putty, but I bet you can set it in the terminal emulation 
> preferences. Or alternatively you can set it at your remote session with the 
> command
> stty erase YOURCHOICE
>
> where YOURCHOICE is probably ^H  (literally ^ and H)

It turns out that Putty was the problem. It was wrong of me to deduce that 
it was a difference in the version of centos.

>From within Putty Control Panel
1. expand the menu item "Terminal"
2. highlight "Keyboard"
3. in the option items "Change the sequence keys sent by"
    3.1. Under "The Backspace Key", select "Control-H"

Thanks.