Help configuring the termcap or terminfo files

[Christopher Davis]

I have a user that requires an xterm definition, when using a terminal session. Looking at the /etc/termcap file, I noticed that a basic xterm has been defined. However, the user also requires 132 columns - the current xterm is defined for 80. What is the correct way to make an "xtermw" definition, that has all of the properties of the existing xterm definition, with the 132 (vs. 80) columns?

[Mike Stroyan]

Almost all applications now use terminfo instead of termcap.

untic xterm > xtermw.tic
vi xtermw.tic
# change 'xterm' to 'xtermw' and '80' to '132'
tic xtermw.tic

The new definition will be stored as /usr/lib/terminfo/x/xtermw. If you don't have a root login you can still make new terminfo definitions for yourself by exporting a directory name in the TERMINFO environment variable as documented in
'man 4 terminfo'.