Unknown Terminal Type linux and Similar

You must edit /etc/termcap to change the line reading:

 console|con80x25:

to

 linux|console|con80x25:

(there may be an additional dumb in there - if so it should be removed.)

To get the editor to work you may need type:

 $ TERM=console

(for bash and ksh), or

 $ setenv TERM console

for csh or tcsh.

Some programs use /usr/lib/terminfo instead of /etc/termcap. For these programs you should upgrade your terminfo package, which is part of ncurses.

The same is true for X terminal displays. If your distribution sets the TERM to something strange like xterm-24-color, you can simply reset it to a generic value from the command line:

 $ TERM="xterm"; export TERM