Serial Port Terminal Emulation problems in Ubuntu

[Mike Bushroe]

I am using Ubuntu at work, were connect to a Linux based Ether
switch/router both by serial port and by telnet. When I use the
default terminal emulation program in Ubuntu, I am able to run nano
(the only editor on the switch), but I can not save the results
because the program traps ^O to use for configuration changes. Is
there an escape sequence that would allow me to send control
characters?

  I tried using minicom, but then when I run nano on the switch, all
the text ends up in one line. Minicom is supposedly emulating a vt102.
Is there a command I can issue to the switch to get it to display
properly under minicom? I tried adding line feeds inside minicom, but
it not only didn;t work, it added an extra line between each line in
the text.

  I also tried running nano with in a telnet session, but the switch
complained that it could not start xterm. Is there a display setting
to bypass trying to use X? I think this system is so stripped down to
fit in a 64Meg flash drive that it does not have X11.

Finally, is there a better terminal emulation program to run on Ubuntu
that won't have the ^O problem? I like TerraTerm under Windows, but
even after Googling for a Linux terminal emulation program, I found
only links to tool kits to make you own, not existing programs.

TIA

Mike