Getting started

Your terminal type

After you log in, the computer may ask for your terminal type. This tells the computer running the UNIX system what kind of terminal you are working from, so it can display things in a way your terminal understands.

After you log in, you may see a terminal type prompt similar to this:

   TERM = (ansi)

The terminal type in parentheses is what the computer thinks your terminal should be. If this information is correct, you can press <Enter> to accept it. Otherwise, you should enter the correct terminal type and press <Enter>.

In the example above, if you really were working from an ansi terminal, you would press <Enter>. If your terminal was a Wyse60, instead of an ansi terminal, you would enter:

   TERM = (ansi)wy60 <Enter>

After you have set your terminal type, you see a command prompt.

Try setting your terminal type now:

Log in.
If you see the TERM= prompt, press <Enter> to accept the terminal type shown in parentheses, or type in the correct terminal type. (If you do not know your terminal type, ask your system administrator.)

Q: What if I do not see a terminal type prompt?

A: Some systems are set up to know what kind of terminal you are logging in on automatically. These systems may not prompt you for the terminal type.

Q: What if I make a mistake and set up the wrong terminal type?

A: If you make a typing mistake, you can backspace to correct it, if you have not pressed <Enter> yet. Otherwise, if you accidentally set up the wrong terminal type, or if you discover while you are working that you have the wrong terminal type, there are two things you can do:

Log out and log back in again, then choose the correct terminal type.
Reset your terminal from the command line. The way you reset your terminal in the middle of your work session depends on the shell you are using. (See ``Identifying your shell'' for instructions on determining which shell you are using.) If you are using the Bourne shell (sh) or the Korn shell (ksh), type:

TERM=termtype ; export TERM
Here termtype is the correct terminal type. If you are using the C shell (csh), type:

setenv TERM termtype