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I have installed and used screen many times on several different operating systems. Recently I installed it on a NetBSD-8.0 virtual machine.

$ sudo pkgin install screen
calculating dependencies...done.

1 package to install:
  screen-4.8.0nb1

0 to refresh, 0 to upgrade, 1 to install
0B to download, 1098K to install

proceed ? [Y/n] Y
installing screen-4.8.0nb1...
screen-4.8.0nb1: setting permissions on /usr/pkg/bin/screen-4.8.0 (o=root, g=wheel, m=4511)
screen-4.8.0nb1: adding /usr/pkg/bin/screen to /etc/shells
screen-4.8.0nb1: registering info file /usr/pkg/info/screen.info
===========================================================================
$NetBSD: MESSAGE,v 1.5 2005/12/28 17:53:24 reed Exp $
[snip]
===========================================================================
pkg_install warnings: 0, errors: 0
reading local summary...
processing local summary...
marking screen-4.8.0nb1 as non auto-removable

However, when I went to use it, I got an immediate failure.

$ uname -mrs
NetBSD 8.0 amd64
$ ls -l /usr/pkg/bin/screen
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  12 Apr  6 02:50 /usr/pkg/bin/screen -> screen-4.8.0
$ groups
users wheel
$ screen
poll: Invalid argument

This problem persists even when I first remove, then reinstall the screen package. Any suggestions as to what's wrong?

Vadim Kotov
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James E Keenan
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1 Answers1

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My guess is that the system used to build binary packages for 8.0 (as of the 8.0_2020Q1 pkgsrc release) is no longer quite compatible with the NetBSD-8.0 release. It is likely running on a newer release, inside a chroot(8) sandbox.

I would recommend using NetBSD-9.0 instead, as that is the latest NetBSD release, or NetBSD-8.2, as that is the latest release in the netbsd-8 branch. Using the latest NetBSD and pkgsrc releases provides better coverage against unpatched vulnerabilities.

However, if you want to keep using NetBSD-8.0, you can get a working screen(1) from the 8.0_2019Q4 pkgsrc release. To have pkgin(1) pull from that release, edit the /usr/pkg/etc/pkgin/repositories.conf file to use this repository URL:

http://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/amd64/8.0_2019Q4/All

There is currently likely just one line in the file that is not commented out, and it points to a URL with just 8.0 in it (which on the server is a symbolic link to the latest pkgsrc release). Just replace that line, or comment it out and add the above line.

Then remove and re-install screen:

sudo pkgin remove screen && sudo pkgin install screen
Kimmo Suominen
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