Frequently Asked Questions
I get errors about the terminal being unknown or opening the terminal failing or functional keys like arrow keys don't work?
The famous case of "'rio' unknown terminal type".
All these issues have the same root cause: the rio terminfo is not available.
Common Scenarios
- SSH connections: The remote system doesn't have Rio's terminfo installed
- Ubuntu 22.04 and older: Rio's .deb packages don't include terminfo (to avoid conflicts), so manual installation is needed
- Debian 13+/Ubuntu 24.04+: Terminfo is provided by the system's ncurses-term package
Solutions by Distribution
For Ubuntu 22.04 and older Debian/Ubuntu:
# Rio .deb packages don't include terminfo, install it manually:
curl -o rio.terminfo https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raphamorim/rio/main/misc/rio.terminfo
sudo tic -xe xterm-rio,rio rio.terminfo
rm rio.terminfo
For Debian 13+ / Ubuntu 24.04+:
- Terminfo is included in
ncurses-term
(6.5+) - Simply ensure ncurses-term is installed:
sudo apt install ncurses-term
For Arch Linux:
sudo pacman -S rio-terminfo
For RPM-based distributions:
- Rio's RPM packages include terminfo, no action needed
Quick Workarounds
- Use a fallback TERM for SSH:
TERM=xterm-256color ssh user@host
- Configure a different TERM in Rio's config file
- Copy terminfo to remote hosts:
infocmp -a xterm-rio | ssh myserver tic -x -o ~/.terminfo /dev/stdin
For more details, see install/terminfo.
Colors scheme not working as intended with tmux
The reason it happens is because tmux is using 256 colors configuration, you need to enable it or stop using Rio term without tmux (in case want to keep with 256 colors).
- In case your shell does not report this correctly, add the following to your
~/.${SHELL}rc
:
export COLORTERM=truecolor
- Please also note you need to add true color override to your
.tmux.conf
file:
set -g default-terminal "rio"
set-option -ga terminal-overrides ",rio:Tc"
- Optionally you can also use
screen-256color
set -g default-terminal "screen-256color"
set-option -ga terminal-overrides ",screen-256color:Tc"