I suppose you go with the 2.4 all the way. If that's the case well I need a 2.6 because I want a bleeding edge system not a server system.
All this trouble and frustration makes me want to go back to Gentoo... too bad I don't have another machine so I can use Gentoo as a reference for this terminal problem... and Gentoo 2006.1, the second release of this year, has gcc 4.1 (IIRC) and lots of improvements... because of the way it is designed, Gentoo will always be on top when it comes to new technologies and new software/features... Maybe I'll give it another try...