1. Missing capability in the linux terminfo entry.

You should check if your linux terminfo description has `csr'
defined; do this with "infocmp linux | grep csr". If not, do
the following:

# infocmp linux > linux
# vi linux
  [ add the line "csr=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dr," ]
# tic linux


2. Using the real ANSI or IBM-PC graphic characters.

If you install this terminfo entry you can use the options
"-l -tmc" to let minicom use the IBM-PC character set on
the linux console.

You can do this by entering (as root):

# tic minicom

Some terminals, such as most consoles on Unixes that run on IBM
compatible PC's, can display special line drawing characters.
If these characters map 1-to-1 to the IBM character set, you can just
use the '-l' (literal) flag when invoking minicom. If your
terminal cannot display the IBM characters directly, you should add
the 'as', 'ae' and 'ac' entries to your termcap or terminfo.

The Linux console only maps 1-to-1 in a special mode. Therefore you need to
make a special terminfo entry that initializes the
console on startup. For an example see the file minicom.
This defines a terminfo entry called "mc".
To use this information instead of the normal 'console' information,
minicom has to be invoked with the '-t mc' option (meaning use TERM=mc
instead of the normal TERM environment variable).

And, in my /etc/profile I have added the lines:

        case "$TERM" in
          con*|linux)
                MINICOM="-l -m -con -tmc" ; export MINICOM
                ;;
        esac

So when I log in on the console I can use minicom in full color,
full ANSI mode.