Terminal [command line] blank after kernel upgrade to 2.6.7 on Redhat 8.0

Hi all,
Ran into this problem after compiling the 2.6 kernel(2.6.7) in my Redhat 8.0 system.
1)My terminal is blank with only the cursor blinking,with no text in any form.the cursor does not move nor does the terminal take any input.
2)not even the [name@localhost] is visible. i'm not able to use any command line utilities.
3)mplayer opens a terminal window with no video or sound.[sound is otherwise playing flawlessly in XMMS].
4)please help me recover my terminal.

i have tried the following:

1)tried changing fonts for the terminal.
2)checked for boot-time errors........a certain Cyrrilic font (excuse typo)
is said to be unreadable.
3)other apps do take input from keyboard....(just in case a kb problem)

I suspect i dint choose the NLS[native language support] options properly.......but i'm not able to track the problem.
Please help.


Additional info:-
only four packages were outdated ones when i began the migration exercise from 2.4.18-14 kernel.i updated them with the latest tools prior to actual compile of 2.6 kernel.updated tools are:

1)e2fsprog
2)the initscripts from Arjan
3)ppp-2.4.2
4)(of course)module-init-tools-3.0
..........also ALSA


Help!!!

It's me.........guys plz someone reply.this problem is driving me mad.

Both under KDE and GNOME the terminal app is not working [Konsole and Terminal] .Even the xterm Window Manager is just showing the prompt but not taking any input.otherwise under 2.4.18-14 kernel the command-line is working perfectly.what's the problem........

font?

initscripts?

keymap?

plz reply if somone figures out wat this is.........

bye

Can you get to GUI in this situation? Do you normally default to a GUI login? I have seen this happen sometimes when attempting to log out of a desktop, only to get to the useless cursor.

Or, is it on every terminal...

Yes my GUI is up and running.And yes I default to GUI login.

With Gnome the "Terminal" program [or shud i call it the virtual terminal] opens but does not take in input.

With KDE the "Konsole" does not even open but throws up an error after ruffly a minute saying "Konsole" has a problem with "Dcopserver".i dont know wat it is.......

yes i tried a text mode login....and bingo command-line works perfectly.....only inside an X session the problem arises...........

plz help me with wat can be the problem.

P.S:- but when I boot with the 2.4 kernel such problems never arise....only with 2.6.7 i encounter this headache.

Hey Vectordrake,
finally solved it man.I had to enable the Unix PTY support [BSD-like].....it worked instantly.i dont know the reason behind it.but this problem has been reported as early as 2.0 kernels.......i dont hav the link currently with me.....but if somone is interested i can dig it up......

but one other thing nagging me is I also enabled support for the terminal on the UART or Serial port blah...blah ...blah option[i dont remember exactly]..........i hav a small doubt as to wat effect this can hav on the problem i had.BTW my monitor is not on a serial port!@#@!#

Excellent! That would have been the next step (to go through all the kernel options one by one), which you did. I think that you may have just enabled multiple terminal support - the one which your xserver was running would not be the only one, then (I think I read it a while ago in the kernel documentation - that stuff can be dry).

You don't need the terminal support on the serial port, unless your machine is gonna be headless.

Could you please tell us where had you enabled the " Unix PTY support [BSD-like] ". Is it in the kernel or specific file.

Thank you

Laurent

For kernel 2.6, its under: Device Drivers-->Character Devices-->