18.5All Keys Work Erratically; Must Hit a Key a Few Times

This is where you need to hit a key a few times before it works (and see the letter you typed on the screen). If you type a word, some (or even all) of the letters may be missing on the screen. If letters are missing from a command it doesn't work and even if all letters are present you may need to hit the return-key several times to get the command to execute.

This may be due to two different processes opening the serial port. Both try to read what you type. Sometimes one process (the right one --perhaps the shell) reads what you type and at other times the other process reads what you type. An example is where the other process is for a serial mouse (such as gpm) which doesn't echo what you type. So another process running on the same ttySx is eating some of what you type. To fix this, use "ps -alx" to see what else is running on your ttySx and kill that process.

You might think that lockfiles would prevent two programs from using the same serial port at the same time. But neither the terminal nor the gpm mouse program uses lockfiles. Since others may need to write to your terminal, it's reasonable not to use lockfiles. See Lock-Files in the Serial-HOWTO.

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