(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