SUMMARY: Proper $TERM value for Alpha 1000 4/266 console

From: Derrick Miller <phuture_at_fred.net>
Date: Mon, 05 Aug 1996 22:41:06 -0400

(Thanks to Allan Small, Alan Rollow, Darryl Cook, Steve Jenkins, and Harinder Singh)

My original question:

> What terminal type should I set $TERM to for the console on an Alpha 1000
> 4/266?
>
> I just finished installing DU 3.2f. When I log in, it sets it to vt100
> (as does 'tset -'), but it's obviously wrong because man pages don't
> display correctly, the display frequently goes into inverse mode, and vi
> goes crazy and spits out an endless stream of ~ signs.

Here are two of the replies I received.

>From Allan Small <asmall_at_isu.usyd.edu.au>:

              There is a good chance that the terminal size is wrong. You can check
               this with % stty -a. The first line should look like the following:

               #2 disc;speed 9600 baud; 24 rows; 80 columns

               Most likely the number of rows is wrong. This will confuse utilities such
               as vi or more. For example, vi will spit out too many (or not enough) ~'s.

              To reset these values:

              % stty rows 24

[This helped, but the display kept going into inverse mode and the cursor still became invisible alot]

>From Alan Rollow <alan_at_nabeth.cxo.dec.com>

               I'd try dw3. There isn't support for cursor positioning emulation
               in the graphics drivers so the best you'll get is the equivalent
              of a single line tty printer terminal. In this case a DECwriter III.

               [ Argh. I would rather shoot myself than edit files in 'ex' ]

              You'd be better trying to figure what graphics software you're
              missing that is preventing the system from running an ordinary
              X server. Some newer systems are using graphics subsystems
              supported by the Open3D product, which doesn't ship with the
              base system. That may be what you're missing.

At this point I called Digital support, who assured me that the system definitely is supposed to start
up in X-Windows mode as shipped from the factory. The rep echoed Alan Rollow's
recommendation that I get the thing running under X-Windows rather than struggle with the
termcaps, etc. So with his help I did, and now vi,nroff, more, etc. work great inside the DECterm
window.

I'm starting to digress, so I'll post a quick summary of what I did to get X working in the next
message.

Regards,
Derrick Miller
Received on Tue Aug 06 1996 - 05:03:52 NZST

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