xterm terminal settings gone bad?

[Shyamal Prasad <shyamal.prasad@ericsson.com>]

Hi,

After doing dist-upgrade recently I noticed that my xterm isn't quite
right. For example, vi doesn't get the terminal right, arrow keys quit
working in vi, and man pages leave the terminal with reverse
video. Starting a new xterm from this xterm fixes these problems.

At the console, everything is okay. Sorry if this is a FAQ.....

~$ echo $TERM 
xterm

~$ stty -a
speed 38400 baud; rows 24; columns 80; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R; werase = ^W;
lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 -hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts
-ignbrk brkint ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff
-iuclc -ixany imaxbel
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt
echoctl echoke

~$ ldd /usr/bin/vi
        libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0x4001e000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x4005c000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000)

~# dpkg -l '*curses*' | grep ^i
ii  libncurses4    4.2-9          Shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libncurses5    5.2.20020112a- Shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libncurses5-de 5.2.20020112a- Developer's libraries and docs for ncurses
ii  ncurses-base   5.2.20020112a- Descriptions of common terminal types
ii  ncurses-bin    5.2.20020112a- Terminal-related programs and man pages
ii  ncurses-term   5.2.20020112a- Additional terminal type definitions


Cheers!
Shyamal