Editing on the serial console

[bob prohaska]

On Thu, Mar 07, 2019 at 11:13:37AM -0800, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
> 
> It is where it is because it is not
> 	/etc/      system configuration files and scripts
> and is
> 	/usr/share/     architecture-independent files
>             misc/       miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files
> 
> The /etc/termcap link is for backwards compatibility.
> 

The logic is impeccable, but the utility leaves something to be
desired. On entering single user, the RPI console reports

Enter full pathname of shell or RETURN for /bin/sh:
Cannot read termcap database;
using dumb terminal settings.

It was necessary to mount /usr so as to get at vi, which one might
expect to make the termcap database accessible. Even so, the display
was garbled. Maybe this was the result of using lxterminal to ssh to
the host holding the usb-serial adapter to the target's serial console.

Using putty to connect to the usb-serial host produced a clean display.

The serial console is rather indespensible on an RPI, is there a way
to configure it to be well-behaved with whatever terminal emulator
is readily available? 

Thanks for reading!

bob prohaska