[geeks] xterm-color and Solaris

[Nathan Raymond]

I have a cousin going to Syracuse University, and students there are 
running into a problem when they log into their Solaris shell accounts 
from MacOS X machines.  In Mac OS X 10.3, Terminal.app defaults to 
xterm-color for the TERM type, and the Mac lab administrators have left it 
that way.  The UNIX admins there are running Solaris 8 for the servers 
that students log into, and Solaris 8 doesn't know about xterm-color. 
The Solaris systems respond this way to students logging in from 
Terminal.app:

  Type xterm-color unknown
  TERM = (unknown)
  Common terminals are vt52, vt100, sun, h19

  Terminal Type [vt100]:

My cousin says a lot of students don't know what to do when faced with the 
"Terminal Type [vt100]:" prompt, and either sit their staring at it, or 
start typing in command line options and this is what happens:

  TERM = (unknown) pine
  Type pine unknown
  TERM = (unknown) pine
  Type pine unknown

It never falls back, so no matter how many commands students enter in, 
they're stuck and often don't realize they're not in the shell yet.  The 
administrators haven't added anything to the MOTD to alert students about 
what to do, so they're just confused.

My cousin wants the admins to do something about it on their end - what is 
the best suggestion he can make to them about what to do?  I found this:

http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/

Which mentions this:

"9. If you dont have the file already, drop xterm-color in 
/usr/share/lib/terminfo/x/term-color. Then when/if you use a 
color-supporting xterm, you will be able to correctly set TERM=xterm-color 
and actually have it work properly. (This actually works better for dtterm 
color than its own "dtterm" TERM setting?!!)"

Which provides a link to this:

http://www.bolthole.com/solaris/xterm-color

Is that what the Solaris admins should download and install on the server 
end of things to best resolve this?

On a similar topic, anyone know the best way to go around supporting 
xterm-color in netbsd?

Thanks in advance for any info,
Nate