When using YaST in PuTTY other ssh emulators typically you encounter corrupted text which makes it difficult to navigate or understand the interface. This issue is often related to incorrect terminal settings or character encoding.

In this post we will see how we can fix this.

YaST is available with two graphical interfaces, one is the YaST2 (GUI) for use on desktop environments and the other one is an ncurses-based pseudo-graphical interface and named YaST2 Text-based User Interface (TUI) for the use directly on the command line which is the one you typically will see this issue.

YaST is a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server tool that provides a graphical interface for all essential installation and system configuration tasks. Whether you need to update packages, configure a printer, modify firewall settings, set up an FTP server, or partition a hard disk—you can do it using YaST. Written in Ruby, YaST features an extensible architecture that makes it possible to add new functionality via modules.

Additional information about YaST is available on the project’s official Web site at https://yast.opensuse.org/



To open YaST2 (TUI), just enter yast or yast2 on the command line.

# yast
# yast2

yast is just a symlink in the /usr/sbin directory which is finally pointing to /usr/sbin/yast2
YaST2 was added to the desktop in SuSE Linux 6.4 and co-existed with YaST1 until YaST1’s removal in SuSE Linux 8.0.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YaST


In case the YaST Control Center will show line distortion with the PuTTY client or other ssh emulators like shown below.


Execute the following export command for the NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS variable.

# export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1
# yast2

Source: https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000018370


From now on the YaST Control Center should also look fine by using PuTTY or other ssh emulators.


To resolve this for all users on a specific SSH server, create /etc/bash.bashrc.local, and add the variable to this file.

# echo 'export NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS=1' >> /etc/bash.bashrc.local

Source: https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=000018370




Links

YaST in Text Mode
https://documentation.suse.com/en-us/sles/15-SP2/html/SLES-all/cha-yast-text.html

ncurses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ncurses

YaST
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YaST