The gdb version with Mandrake 7.0 apparently echoes input. So when xwpe does 'r ./test ...', it receives 'r ./test ...' instead of the expected 'Starting program:...'. Whether this is an enhancement by Mandrake or a feature of ncurses 5 is unknown. (My guess is ncurses.) No fix yet. Dennis Payne dulsi@identicaloftware.com