Keyboard / termin mystery issue on Thinkpad R61i. Linux OS.

[Landshark]

Hello...

I have a Thinkpad R61i that I bought several months ago.

Right out of the box SUSE wouldn't boot, so I installed Fedora 8. One issue I've had is when I'm working with a terminal open, and suddenly something kicks off that begins filling the screen with ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. Line after line, and it demolishes my other applications as well. When I go to other open terminal sessions, they also display either the ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ or the repeated characters ^[[23~^[[23~^[[23~^[[{23~^[[23~ . The only way out of this mess is generally to reboot, but sometimes that doesn't work, either.

I suppose it may be a keyboard issue. The only other variables I've been able to determine is that 1) Firefox has been open, and 2) multiple shells were open.

Thoughts? It's a weird one that I haven't been able to research 'cause it's challenging to search for.

Thanks for any insight.

Landshark

[Harryc]

Try booting up another live Linux CD. If the problem repeats itself, I'd replace the keyboard...hopefully under warranty.