Using stty to change the window size

The default terminal window, which is specified by the terminal type interix, displays a console window that is 80 characters wide by 25 characters high. You can change the window size by using the stty(1) command or the TERM variable.

You can display much more content in a terminal window by changing the height to 50 characters. With the stty command, you can change both the width and height of the window. To change the window size to 80 characters (or columns) wide by 50 characters (or rows) high, use the following:

stty cols 80 rows 50

You might be accustomed to a UNIX standard window size of 132 columns across. The standard Windows terminal font will fill the screen with 125 characters. Instead of setting the columns to 132, you should use a maximum of 125. To make window dimensions more permanent, you can save them in a startup file such as .profile.

Although the stty command is recommended for changing the terminal window size, you can also use the TERM variable to change the window dimensions. The TERM variable is usually set in .profile in the Korn shell, or .cshrc in the C shell. The following table describes the available window types:

TERM type Description
interix-35 80 columns by 35 rows.
interix-50 80 columns by 50 rows.
interix-60 80 columns by 60 rows.
interix-*-w-* Versions of the above terminals heights also exist with names that include a -w. These widths are 125 characters wide.
interix-*-nti Versions of the above terminal types exist with names that include -nti. These version have no ti/te (terminal initialization/terminal end) capability. If you set TERM to one of these types, programs such as vi(1) and more(1) will not save the screen when you start them, and will not restore the screen when you exit. This behavior is similar to the default behavior in System V.