Nick, you are almost there 
rview's name changed to rvu. So call it again with
rvu -vp 2.25 .375 1 -vd -.25 .125 -.125 -av .5 .5 .5 test2.oct
Rpict gives out a picture, so the strange characters are what is happening if you write a picture to the terminal. Redirect output to a file and display it with ximage:
rpict -vp 2.25 .375 1 -vd -.25 .125 -.125 -av .5 .5 .5 test2.oct > image.hdr
ximage image.hdr
Or if you do not want to save the image but just display it, redirect the ouput to ximage using the pipe:
rpict -vp 2.25 .375 1 -vd -.25 .125 -.125 -av .5 .5 .5 test2.oct | ximage
I hope this helps a bit. Get used to input/output-redirection, which is described in all standard Linux tutorials. You should know the meaning of <, > and | in a unix-like system. Than introduce filters such as pfilt, ra_tiff, pcond. Than go on with modeling scenes, lights, materials.
Good luck!
Lars.