On Sun, 27 Mar 2005, Paul Goyette wrote:

> The TERM= setting doesn't tell the console driver how to behave.  So
> setting TERM=linux just is not going to make us behave like a Linux
> box!

Yup. Lots of people seem to not understand this anymore.

> Instead, TERM= is used to tell the software what capabilities the
> terminal device has.  As noted elsewhere in this thread, the NetBSD
> console terminal device is basically a DEC vt220 with some vt240
> color extensions.

Minor nitpick: the VT240 color handling is nothing like the ANSI color
handling which the console terminal does.
Actually, the VT240 is a grayscale terminal with 4 hues. The VT241 is the
color verison, but you only have 4 colors, and you can only switch colors
by playing with regis. The VT340 have 16 colors, but still only selectable
through regis. The only DEC terminal with ANSI color selection is the
VT525.

>  If you're running an application on the console,
> you should have TERM=vt220 for best results;  that way, the application knows
> what the terminal device is capable of doing, and how to do it.

Probably not. With VT220, you'll not get any color (which was one thing
requested here). Also, a VT220 have a rather different keyboard layout and
keys compared to a PC keyboard. Some things will be mapped in a
semi-sensible way (such as PAGE UP = PREV. PAGE and PAGE DOWN = NEXT PAGE,
but things like SELECT don't exist on a PC keyboard, and a key like HOME
don't exist on a VT220 keyboard).

Isn't there a wscons terminal type? Or some "pc" terminal type, that is
more appropriate?

> If you found an entry in termcap for one of those old IBM "golfball" terminals
> (IBM 2741?), would you expect TERM=golfball would magically
> make our software understand EBCDIC characters?  I think not.  So
> why do you expect setting TERM=linux to make us behave like a linux
> terminal?

:-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol