Hi, On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 12:49, James B. Byrne <byrnejb at harte-lyne.ca> wrote: > If the logged in session in the terminal window is my own user id > then the delete key does nothing. If however, I su -l in the same > terminal window then the delete key removes the character under the > cursor and left shifts the rest of the line. > > I am fairly confident that the delete key worked in the same fashion > for my usual user id up until quite recently. Does anyone know of > why or how this behaviour could differ between two separate users in > the same terminal window? I believe it is probably something to do with the profile settings of your user. Does .bash_profile contain these lines? if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then . ~/.bashrc Does .bashrc contain these lines? if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then . /etc/bashrc Are you using the stty command on any of those files? Are you resetting the value of the TERM variable? What are the output of "stty" and "echo $TERM" when you run them from a shell inside your gnome-terminal? For reference, these are mine: $ stty speed 38400 baud; line = 0; eol = M-^?; eol2 = M-^?; swtch = M-^?; ixany iutf8 $ echo $TERM xterm You can also compare the output of these commands when you run as root after doing "su -". If you create a new user account and log in as the new user in GNOME, open a new gnome-terminal, do the keys work as you expect them to? HTH, Filipe