Very Computer

I just started using a nice shiny new Linux box, but I have this problem
:-

In emacs (and as far as I can tell, only in emacs), the text block
cursor
comes out completely solid, so you can't see the character underneath.

This happens with both Emacs 19.31.1 and 20.2.1, and it only happens
when
displaying to the Linux box. If I use either of these with the display
pointing at a SUN, they're fine.

This makes me think that it's an X problem of some sort, but things like
xterms have a perfect block cursor which doesn't obscure the underlying
text...

Any ideas ?

TIA

-- Jim

Dolphin Interconnect Solutions  +44 117 9071438
http://www.dolphinics.com/toolworks

This is almost definitely a problem of your X server. I had the same
problem with my Matrox card as well. This problem only occured in
16 or 24 bpp, I don't remember. Best is to get the newest X server
you can find, either XFree86 3.3.2 or XSuSE
  http://www.suse.de/XSuSE/XSuSE_E.html
(most recent version of XFCom_3DLabs: Version 4.30 as of September 12, 1998)

Hope this helps,
Kevin
--
  Kevin Ivory                           Tel: +49 5556 979 434
  Max-Planck-Institut fuer Aeronomie    Fax: +49 5556 979 240

D-37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, GERMANY      http://www.gwdg.de/~kivory2/

Well, I believe that the problem is in X server, as Kevin suggested.

In absence of a fix for that (or the server sources, which are as yet
unreleased), here's what I did in case anyone else has the same problem.

In your .emacs add

;;; Use a red bar cursor until the X server is fixed
(setq default-frame-alist
      (append '((cursor-type . bar))
              '((cursor-color . "Red"))
              default-frame-alist))

That gets you a bright red vertical bar cursor, around which you can
still see the character at point.

Enjoy.

-- Jim

Dolphin Interconnect Solutions  +44 117 9071438
http://www.dolphinics.com/toolworks