Pico on Debian "Slink" v2.1 error message.

["Raj Wurttemberg" <rajaw@bellsouth.net>]

I just got Debian "Slink" 2.1 installed and it seems to be working
fine but when I tried to run pico I get this error:

Unknown terminal type vt100!

Someone suggested changing the terminal type to "linux" by typing
"export TERM=linux" but that just had pico return the error:

Unknown terminal type linux!

What the?? I have been using RedHat 5.2 for the longest but the bugs
(features?) in RedHat were really starting to annoy me. I ran "jed",
"jove", "vim", and "vi" all appear to work just fine. Any assistance
would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Raja Wurttemberg