Dialog is a utility that provides dialog boxes from shell scripts, you may have seen them in aptitude during upgrades. When i use Emacs shell (M-x shell) and type sudo aptitude safe-upgrade, i get the following error several times:debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialogdebconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)debconf: falling back to frontend: ReadlineWhy doesn't Dialog work with Emacs shell? And should i use some substitute?
Why dialog doesn't support emacs shell on Debian?
shell;terminal;emacs
Dialog uses ncurses, which doesn't work in Emacs' shell-mode, and according to SO: What would be a good alternative to ncurses that will work under emacs shell?, there's no suitable alternative to ncurses that would work in emacs-shell, but it hints to full terminal capabilities of other Emacs' modes (which unfortunately I know nothing about), maybe Multi Term?