In util-linux2.25, the "column" command isn't written for Linux using a
Linux-console (among others).  It assumes 8-column
fixed-width tabs and screen width of 80).

The Linux-console (or any emulator) and terminals supporting
the EMCA-48 standard (vt-100-emulating terms, as well as "xterm")
can have tabs set to arbitrary spacing.

Attached is a bash-script that can show current tab settings
as well as set them to a new value.

It only supports setting tabs to fixed-width, but there is nothing
preventing tabs from being set to variable width expansions.

Ex:
>  tty_tab 8
>  tty_tab
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 9 17 25 33 41 49 57 65 73 80
>  tty_tab 2
>  tty_tab
(from 1, tabs skip to column: 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 
33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 57 59 61 63 65 67 69 71 73 75 77 79 80

Suggestions to fix column (or other progs that deal
w/the console and use tabs):

1) allow -i (-t is taken) to specify width of terminal tab expansion
   -i 8 (default)
   -i 4 (some like 4-column indents)
   -i 2 (and some use 2 to keep down line length).  I've seen "1" used
   as a tabsize in javascript files...

1a) (low priority) -- have "-i" take a list of numbers, like
   -i 18 36 44 54
    (might be reasonable for /etc/fstab?) -- any tabs beyond the
     last would use the last specified interval (in above case, "10")
2) --no-tabs
    A "Don't use tabs" option for lining up columns, use spaces.
    AFAIK, spaces are a fixed size on tty's.

----

There's a tab-set program in the ncurses-utils as well called 'tabs'.