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In one of my remote machines, I try to use vim to edit a file.

When I press the Backspace key, the output is not deleting my character but adding ^? which is in a different color.

What is this and how can I avoid it?

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I assumed you meant the backspace key, is that correct? Also, where are you connecting from (which Terminal?), and where are you connecting to? – slhck♦ Jul 31 '11 at 12:00
^ What he said + which shell are you using and what is the value of the $TERM environment variable? (echo $TERM). – Carpetsmoker Jul 31 '11 at 12:19
i am connecting to a remote machine. i echo $TERM, it is xterm. My term in local is gnome-terminal. – Kit Ho Jul 31 '11 at 13:48

1 Answer

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This was known bug in Xterm which produced the wrong backspace character.. Upgrading to the latest version of XTerm should fix the issue. Otherwise, you can use a workaround the issue by adding 

*ttyModes: erase ^?

to /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm.

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