Termcap/terminfo mapping

When working with the LKP from UnixWare 7 xterms, or from the console, you might find that curses or curses-like programs don't look right on the screen. This is because the Linux termcap/terminfo entries don't match exactly the video escape sequences that UnixWare 7 is set up to expect.

For example, in vim, you might see a message that vim knows nothing about the terminal that you are on, or find that you have one more screen line than vim thinks you have. When using the man command (which uses less to page), you might find that video attributes are not correctly cleared.

Most of these problems can be alleviated by making minor adjustments to the TERM environment variable, as follows:

• In an xterm: The Linux definition of xterm doesn't quite agree with the UnixWare 7 implementation of Xterm. Resetting TERM to ``xterm-r6'' results in much improved behavior, both from vim and less.

• In a dtterm: Linux has only one definition of a dtterm. It works well with a UnixWare 7 dtterm, with the exception of 8-bit <AD> characters used to represent dashes in man pages.

These suggestions are also applicable for remote logins to native Linux systems.

Most curses-based programs in UnixWare 7 use terminfo. Linux uses both terminfo (less, etc.), and termcap (vim), so if you want to add new terminal definitions, it is necessary to add them to both terminfo and termcap for the LKP.

ls displays colors depending upon values set in the /etc/DIRCOLORS file. If you don't like the use of colors, you can use the --color=never option to ls, or update /etc/DIRCOLORS to use the colors you prefer.