Source: screen
Version: 5.0.1-1.1
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-68k@lists.debian.org, debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org, debian-s390@lists.debian.org, debian-sparc@lists.debian.org
User: debian-68k@lists.debian.org
Usertags: m68k
User: debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org
Usertags: powerpc ppc64
User: debian-s390@lists.debian.org
Usertags: s390x
User: debian-sparc@lists.debian.org
Usertags: sparc64

Hi,

since the latest update, screen no longer works on big-endian systems.

Tested on both ppc64 and sparc64, running "screen bash" will start bash
inside a screen, but it's no longer possible to interact with the shell,
i.e. typing commands.

Downgrading screen to the last 4.x release, fixes the problem immediately.

Thanks,
Adrian

Hi John,

There seems to be a fix for this here in https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?67607
(https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/screen.git/diff/?h=screen-v5&id=ccd0b27504707e4f3099f0b9fd7a89489c6973fb)

I have tested this patch on my s390x machine and it does seem to work fine.

Thanks,
Pranav

Hi Pranav,

Thanks for the heads-up! I'll test it on both big-endian PowerPC and SPARC.

Adrian

Hi Pranav,

I can confirm that the attached patch extracted from the commit above fixes the problem.

Adrian

Raising the severity to serious now to avoid that the broken version
migrates to testing and breaks screen on s390x there.

Adrian

Hi John,

Just to be sure. Was the severity raised to serious just as to warn the migration of the
package to testing or is there something that isn't working properly with the patch?

Thanks & Regards,
Pranav

Hi Pranav,

As indicated by my previous mail, I have set the severity to serious so that the package
won't be updated to 5.x in testing until this particular bug has been fixed. This ensures
that screen is broken on s390x in unstable only.

Adrian

Hello John,
There is already a fix provided as for this as part of https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?67607.

Pranav has verified this fix on S390x , it is working as expected.

Regards,
Giridhar Trivedi

From: John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de>
Date: Tuesday, 12 May 2026 at 12:37 PM
To: Pranav P <pranav.p7@ibm.com>
Cc: 1135587@bugs.debian.org <1135587@bugs.debian.org>, Debian S/390 Team <debian-s390@lists.debian.org>, debian-powerpc <debian-powerpc@lists.debian.org>,
<debian-sparc@lists.debian.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Bug#1135587: screen: screen no longer works on big-endian systems

Hi Pranav,

As indicated by my previous mail, I have set the severity to serious so that the package
won't be updated to 5.x in testing until this particular bug has been fixed. This ensures
that screen is broken on s390x in unstable only.

Adrian

Hi Giridhar,

Yes, I have also verified the fix on big-endian PowerPC and SPARC.

However, the fix has not been added to Debian unstable yet. The package
in unstable is still broken hence the severity of the bug.

Adrian

Strange, on Gentoo I have screen 5.0.1 on both m68k and PowerPC without this problem.

Hi folks,
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/screen/-/merge_requests/5

To assist with picking up any other regressions in future, anyone know
how I
can get a selection of CI runners assigned to this salsa project:
https://salsa.debian.org/peterdey/screen
(e.g. ppc64el/s390x/sparc64)?

Cheers,
Peter

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
screen, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1135587@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org> (supplier of updated screen package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)
Format: 1.8
Date: Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000
Source: screen
Architecture: source
Version: 5.0.1-2
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>
Changed-By: Otto Kekäläinen <otto@debian.org>
Closes: 702659 859313 1134768 1135587
Changes:
 screen (5.0.1-2) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ Peter Dey ]
   * Fix regression of #51088 - socket dir should be in /run/screen
   * Set Priority to optional to match archive override (Closes: #1134768)
   * Keep -Q @windows output off the attached display (Closes: #702659)
   * Restore the value of defflow after (re-)attachment (Closes: #859313)
   * Fix input handling on big-endian systems (Closes: #1135587)
   * Documentation fixes to keep lintian happy
 .
   [ Otto Kekäläinen ]
   * Bump Debian Policy version to 4.7.4
   * Update d/copyright to include recent contributors
   * Add myself and Peter Dey as uploader, and remove inactive old uploader
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 909b7b06eb47bcf7b03cc5cc7d2d4e9eddb29c02 55508 screen_5.0.1-2.debian.tar.xz
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Hi guys,

Perhaps no-one saw this, because I didn't include all the lists in CC...

To prevent other/future big-endian regressions, we're trying to get some
additional runners enabled on the Screen repo in Salsa:
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/screen/-/merge_requests/6

As far as I can tell, the runners for s390x and pp664el are enabled...
but they're not accepting jobs.

Would someone know if this is a config issue on our side, or a
permissions issue in the infra somewhere?

Cheers,
Peter

You do "dpkg --add-architecture s390x" and
"apt-get build-dep --host-architecture s390x"?

Bastian