Subject: Re: bug#23369: 25.0.93; CANNOT_DUMP build fails if resizing terminal during startup in tty mode

From: Fredrik Fornwall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2016 11:43:02 +0200

On 25 April 2016 at 09:54, Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Can you tell why would one want to resize the terminal during startup?
> In general, during that time, a CANNOT_DUMP build is not fully
> functional, so doing something like that is not recommended, I frankly
> I cannot see any reasons for that.  What am I missing?

Some reasons causing terminal resize during startup:
(1) If running emacs on Android
(http://endlessparentheses.com/running-emacs-on-android.html), you may
want to show the (or switch to another) touch keyboard, which causes a
terminal resize. Android also forces CANNOT_DUMP since binaries needs
to be position-independent, and startup is also slower due to running
on mobile devices, so the window of opportunity increases.
(2) One wants to resize the terminal to e.g. put the terminal window
with emacs besides another window, or maximize the window.
(3) One wants to change font size when jumping from the terminal into emacs.

If one knows that emacs crashes if resizing during startup it's easy
to wait for startup to complete before doing any of the above.

The problem is that most new users won't know that, and a message
like"function definition is void: internal-echo-keystrokes-prefix"
won't help them understand it either, and they will instead need
support (or give up using emacs).