1XTERM(1) X Window System XTERM(1)
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6 xterm - terminal emulator for X
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9 xterm [-toolkitoption ...] [-option ...] [shell]
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12 The xterm program is a terminal emulator for the X Window System. It
13 provides DEC VT102/VT220 and selected features from higher-level
14 terminals such as VT320/VT420/VT520 (VTxxx). It also provides
15 Tektronix 4014 emulation for programs that cannot use the window system
16 directly. If the underlying operating system supports terminal
17 resizing capabilities (for example, the SIGWINCH signal in systems
18 derived from 4.3BSD), xterm will use the facilities to notify programs
19 running in the window whenever it is resized.
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21 The VTxxx and Tektronix 4014 terminals each have their own window so
22 that you can edit text in one and look at graphics in the other at the
23 same time. To maintain the correct aspect ratio (height/width),
24 Tektronix graphics will be restricted to the largest box with a 4014's
25 aspect ratio that will fit in the window. This box is located in the
26 upper left area of the window.
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28 Although both windows may be displayed at the same time, one of them is
29 considered the “active” window for receiving keyboard input and
30 terminal output. This is the window that contains the text cursor.
31 The active window can be chosen through escape sequences, the VT
32 Options menu in the VTxxx window, and the Tek Options menu in the 4014
33 window.
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36 Xterm provides usable emulations of related DEC terminals:
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38 · VT52 emulation is complete.
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40 · VT102 emulation is fairly complete, but does not support autorepeat
41 (because that would affect the keyboard used by other X clients).
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43 Double-size characters are displayed properly if your font server
44 supports scalable fonts.
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46 · VT220 emulation does not support soft fonts, it is otherwise
47 complete.
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49 · VT420 emulation (the default) supports controls for manipulating
50 rectangles of characters as well as left/right margins.
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52 Xterm does not support some other features which are not suitable
53 for emulation, e.g., two-sessions.
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55 Terminal database (terminfo (5) or termcap (5)) entries that work with
56 xterm include
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58 an optional platform-specific entry (“xterm”),
59 “xterm”,
60 “vt102”,
61 “vt100”,
62 “ansi” and
63 “dumb”
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65 Xterm automatically searches the terminal database in this order for
66 these entries and then sets the “TERM” variable (and the “TERMCAP”
67 environment variable on a few ol