You probably sent some binary data to your screen by mistake. Type echo '\033c' to fix it. Many Linux distributions have a command, reset, that does this.

If that doesn't help, try a direct screen escape command.

   $ echo 'Ctrl-V Ctrl-O'

This resets the default font of a Linux console. Remember to hold down the Control key and type the letter, instead of, for example, Ctrl, then V. The sequence

   $ echo 'Ctrl-V Esc C'

causes a full screen reset. If there's data left on the shell command line after typing a binary file, press Ctrl-C a few times to restore the shell command line.

Another possible command is an alias, "sane," that can work with generic terminals:

     $ alias sane='echo -e "\\033c";tput is2; \
     > stty sane line 1 rows $LINES columns $COLUMNS'

The alias is enclosed with open quotes (backticks), not single quotes. The line break is included here for clarity, and is not required.

Make sure that $LINES and $COLUMNS are defined in the environment with a command similar to this in ~/.cshrc or ~/.bashrc,

     $ LINES=25; export $LINES; $COLUMNS=80; export $COLUMNS

using the correct numbers of $LINES and $COLUMNS for the terminal.

Finally, the output of "stty -g" can be used to create a shell script that will reset the terminal:

1. Save the output of "stty -g" to a file. In this example, the file is named "termset.":

   $ stty -g >termset

   
   
   

   The output of "stty -g" (the contents of "termset") will look something like:

   500:5:bd:8a3b:3:1c:7f:15:4:0:1:0:11:13:1a:0:12:f:17:16:0:0:73

   
   
   

2. Edit "termset" to become a shell script; adding an interpreter and "stty" command:

   #!/bin/bash stty 500:5:bd:8a3b:3:1c:7f:15:4:0:1:0:11:13:1a:0:12:f:17:16:0:0:73

   
   
   

3. Add executable permissions to "termset" and use as a shell script:

   $ chmod +x termset $ ./termset

   
   
   

[Floyd L. Davidson, Bernhard Gabler]