RH 5.1 & tty problems

[Scot Jenkins <swjenkins@ibm.net>]

I have _serious_ problems when trying to login on text console #1
(tty1).  Here's an example:

login: r Password:

I try to login as root, but as soon as I type "r" it displays
"Password:" and I haven't even hit enter!  This problem only occurs on
tty1.

Other times, the ENTER key displays a new prompt but on the same line
(no linefeed), like this:

[root@localhost ~]# [root@localhost ~]# [root@localhost ~]#
[root@localhost ~]# [root@localhost ~]# [root@localhost ~]# 

Also, if I manage to get logged on on one of the bad tty's, I can't move
around in vi; the movement keys just display the key character instead
of moving it (ie, "j" go move down on line displays a "j" on the screen
but doesn't move down a line).  This leads me to believe its some kind
of termcap problem.

These problems occurs on any tty at random, but not always right away. 
Sometimes it does it immediately after booting; sometimes the system has
been up for about 10 minutes and then the problem kicks in.  It is very
repeatable though.  It also appears that it you flood the tty with input
you can break it; try issuing one command after another with a bunch of
ENTERS thrown in.  Maybe I type too fast, but still this shouldn't
happen.  RH 4.2 & earlier never had these problems.

I mentioned this at the the TCLUG installfest this past weekend but no
one else seemed to have the problem.

I know it's not hardware related because it does this on my laptop AND
on my desktop.  Plus another guy I know has the same problem on
different hardware (all hardware is intel pentium based).  All systems
with the problem are running RH 5.1.  At first we thought it might have
been the updates, but my testing disproved that theory.

Here's what I've tried, none of which fixed the problem:

1. clean install of RH 5.1, no updated rpm's applied (still broken)
2. clean install of RH 5.1 with updated rpm's applied (still broken)
3. clean install of RH 4.2 (system works ok here), upgrade to RH 5.1
(broken then)
4. tried recreating RH 5.1 boot disks and repeating above steps (still
broke)
5. kill the shell or getty on the bad tty; still broke.  If a shell was
out there, now pressing ENTER displays "^M" and you can no longer send a
true ENTER to get the PC to accept input.
6. "init q" to try to make init reput the getty out there; it issues a
new getty but that one too is still broken.
7. rebooting system (both cold & warm); neither works.

I had the ^M problem in the past with RH 3.03, 4.1, & 4.2 but only under
this situation:
a) boot system to initdefault (runlevel 3).
b) init 1 for maintenance
c) then init 3 -- now whatever tty you were using in single user, you
couldn't send an ENTER; pressing ENTER just displayed ^M.

This was not a serious problem because it was a rare situation and I
just learned to avoid it.  The problem with RH 5.1 is serious and cannot
be avoided.

The reason for my upgrade is to be able to install Oracle (requires
glibc) plus try to stay current with the OS.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.  I'm posting this to bugzilla at
redhat's site also.
-- 
Scot W. Jenkins <swjenkins@ibm.net>
Unix Systems Administrator
Key fingerprint = 82 20 A8 4E 46 82 CE D4  F6 77 58 59 46 92 28 26