terminal setup issues on FreeBSD

[Edward Peschko]

All,

I cannot believe that this is not a faq - yet a search of google
didn't turn up any hits.

How exactly do you set terminal settings for bsd? I've done a

setenv TERM xterm

where I'm ssh'ing into a local box in an rxvt
(in a screen session), but there is no resize, and
the variables COLUMNS and LINES don't
work as they do on linux.

In addition, the terminal that I've got doesn't
handle newlines correctly; I get a 'looping' effect;
where the prompt loops back onto itself onto the same line.

Anyways, sorry if I missed any obvious FAQs, but this is
exceedingly annoying, as a result of the above,
it makes maintenance and work on the said machine
impossible.  The OS in question I'm using is unfortunately
of necessity very old, ie: freebsd-4.4, so whatever solution
to this will have to take that into account.

Thanks much for any pointers,

Ed