any of you guys seen when opening vi, the screen outputs very strangely. i can't actually see the file itself because the output is so altered. anyone seen this? i've tried editing TERM, EDITOR, DISPLAY... but nothing seems to work.

also to note, i am coming in through the LOM connection to this server.

Try:

TERM=vt100
export TERM

on the server and set your terminal emulation setting to vt100/vt102.

... or if somehow you've resized the X window, try:

Usually I prefer to use vt100 unless I'm at the console.

export TERM=vt100 (for ksh)
TERM=vt100;export TERM (bourne shell)

examples:

TERM=hp;export TERM
TERM=sun;export TERM
TERM=sun-cmd;export TERM

normally after setting TERM, I will do a 'clear' command to test my TERM settings, if the screen clears then I'm alright, if it doesn't clear screen then TERM is wrong then you better be careful when you edit or vi anything.

In vi mode if you suspect your TERM is wrong how do you know if you are typing on the right line or overwriting the correct word? If your TERM is wrong when you move the cursor using arrow keys it may sometimes garble up the screen, so how do you know if you are typing correctly?

by pressing ctrl-l it will refresh the screen.

But sometimes it is not so good to use arrow keys because it may give some special character esp if your TERM is incorrect.
then you must know how to use the various commands in vi to move the cursor ard.

tried vt100 and no luck.
moved to dtterm and that seemed to work... kinda. still running into some issues every so often but its bearable for the time being. it's a fresh install and i've never had such problems but... problems = learning right.