How can I make `adb shell` have the correct terminal size?

UPDATE (Feb. 2015): By now, you can just use "phablet-shell". No need to fiddle around with self built scripts any more. That said, if you want to, they should still work.

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What I usually do is to use ssh instead of adb. That one configures the terminal properly (besides setting many other things up better than adb does).

Put this into your ~/.bash_aliases (on the host computer, not the device)

alias sd='adb shell start ssh; \
    adb forward tcp:2222 tcp:22; \
    ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/known_hosts -R [localhost]:2222; \
    ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no \
        phablet@localhost -p 2222'

and close/reopen the terminal window.

Now you can just do a "sd" (short for ssh device) and you'll be logged in as user phablet on the phone, with a properly configured terminal and a properly set up user environment.

It's not a bug in the terminal - the default setup of the shell on android is just not configured to handle changing window sizes.

After you resize the actual terminal window, use the resize command - then use your fullscreen program.