Help! I think echo $TERM not working

[ahswong]

For my intro to linux class, I had to set TERM=dumb (the original value for TERM=xterm-256color) This was part of our homework assignment to intro to environmental variables. I tried using unset<VARIABLE NAME> to unset it but it doesn't work. Now when I enter the command echo $TERM it just returns dumb. It's driving me insane. Could someone please advise? Thanks!

[mbozzi]

Just do
% TERM=xterm-256color
Or just close your terminal emulator and open it again.

[ahswong]

i read that if I exit the terminal the TERM would reset back as it's original value but for some reason it's not doing the same for my terminal.

[keskiverto]

I had to set TERM

How did you do that? Just on shell or also in config file?
Which shell, which file?

Every time you start a shell, it loads some config. There are "login shell" and "non-login shell" sessions.