UNIX Power Tools

UNIX Power ToolsSearch this book
Previous: VII. Terminals and Printers Chapter 41Next: 41.2 stty and All That Stuff
 

41. Terminal and Serial Line Settings

Contents:
Delving a Little Deeper
stty and All That Stuff
Find Out Terminal Settings with stty
How UNIX Handles TAB Characters
Why Some Systems Backspace over Prompts
Using sleep to Keep Port Settings
Reading Verrrry Long Lines from the Terminal
ptys and Window Systems
Commands to Adjust Your Terminal
Using terminfo Capabilities in Shell Programs
How termcap and terminfo Describe Terminals
Finding Out What Characters Your Terminal's Special Keys Send

41.1 Delving a Little Deeper

Article 5.2 and others introduce parts of UNIX terminal handling. This chapter contains several articles that show a little more about how UNIX handles terminals and other serial devices. Beginners don't always realize that there are several overlapping mechanisms at work. Programs like tset and tput, and the termcap and terminfo databases they depend on, actually configure the terminal or window (or tell other programs about their characteristics), while stty affects the operation of the UNIX device drivers that handle the serial line. From a user's point of view, the distinction isn't always clear, especially since tset does some of its work on both levels.

Perhaps we're continuing the confusion by putting information about both of these topics into the same chapters. Oh well. What we have here are a miscellany of topics that delve a little deeper than we've gone before into how terminals work under UNIX.

- TOR


Previous: VII. Terminals and Printers UNIX Power ToolsNext: 41.2 stty and All That Stuff
VII. Terminals and Printers Book Index41.2 stty and All That Stuff

The UNIX CD Bookshelf NavigationThe UNIX CD BookshelfUNIX Power ToolsUNIX in a NutshellLearning the vi Editorsed & awkLearning the Korn ShellLearning the UNIX Operating System