Hi;

	After running 2.6.7 and 2.6.8.1 for ages with no problems,
I just booted into 2.6.9 last night, (using the same .config, and
unchanged userspace) and have been encountering a strange problem:

	I generally have 9 'aterm's running on my desktop. The
ones using /dev/pts/[1-8] have been running fine, but the terminal
that uses /dev/pts/9+  have been getting what looks like a burst
of line noise on at the shell prompt, and then it becomes
permanently unresponsive. (this burst of 'noise', seems to happen
periodicly, and is a repetition of this:
~ÿ}#À!}!}!} }8}!}$}"} }"}&} } } } }%}&]O='}'}"}(}"D¡~ 	)

	Nothing I do seems to trigger this, it will occur even if
the terminal window doesnt have focus and the machine is idle.
Im not sure if Ive ever seen it happen to two aterms at once-- it
seems to prefer to happen to the first /dev/pts/ number above 8.
(I have see it happen with good old xterm too.)

	Currently, I am looking at the shell using /dev/pts/12:
#echo hi > /dev/pts/12
-bash: /dev/pts/12: Device or resource busy

#strace -p <pid-of-bash>
fcntl64(0, F_GETFL)                     = 0x2 (flags O_RDWR)
read(0, 0xbfffedff, 1)                  = -1 EAGAIN (Resource temporarily unavailable)

(endlessly repeated, bash is taking most of the cpu spinning on this.)

	There are no messages/complaints from the kernel.

	Can anyone recommend a patch I can test backing out?
Or suggest what else could explain this?

Paul
set@pobox.com

machine is an older pIIx2 @400 running Gentoo
.config is attached