When I ssh from my system to termux, my term is
~ $ echo $TERM
screen.xterm-256color
..and I can't start Emacs.
Seems Termux doesn't like that. If I change it to
$ export TERM=xterm-256color
, then all is good.
Do I need to install terminfo for GNU Screen to be able to run Emacs?
This is obviously a question about termux and terminfo rather than Emacs, so I will be brief.
The terminfo database is normally stored in /usr/share/terminfo. For example, the entry for screen.xterm-256color would be in the file called /usr/share/terminfo/s/screen.xterm-256color.
You can use the infocmp program to show what is in these files. Check the man page for details, but if you give it a terminal name it will print out everything it knows about it. It sounds like in your current setup infocmp xterm-256color will succeed while infocmp screen.xterm-256color will give you an error. See the man page for more details, obviously.
The command tic compiles a terminfo file from it’s source code, if you happen to find it and don’t have a better way to install it. Again, read the man page if you have any questions.
I don’t know anything specific about Termux, so I cannot tell you how to install things with it; you will have to consult it’s own documentation. Know however that screen.xterm-256color is a very normal terminal name to use; it should be in your terminfo database if it is installed correctly. Usually you install the entire database from a single OS package and you don’t have to mess about with individual entries unless you have installed a brand new terminal emulator.
