How to change terminal character encoding

Question

Today I uninstalled the GUI packages on my home CentOS installation. Now, when the machine starts, I get the login prompt. It acts finicky. Sometimes pressing enter just once after answering each prompt works. Other times, no. When I manage to get logged in, I can only enter commands in bash by entering one character at a time -- that is:

l, enter
o, enter
c, enter
a, enter
l, enter
e, enter
enter

Does anyone have some insight for this?

UPDATE: This is the result of stty -a:

speed 38400 baud; rows 64; columns 160; line = 0;
intr = ^C; quit = ^\; erase = ^?; kill = ^U; eof = ^D; eol = <undef>;
eol2 = <undef>; swtch = <undef>; start = ^Q; stop = ^S; susp = ^Z; rprnt = ^R;
werase = ^W; lnext = ^V; flush = ^O; min = 1; time = 0;
-parenb -parodd cs8 hupcl -cstopb cread -clocal -crtscts cdtrdsr
-ignbrk -brkint -ignpar -parmrk -inpck -istrip -inlcr -igncr icrnl ixon -ixoff
-iuclc -ixany -imaxbel iutf8
opost -olcuc -ocrnl onlcr -onocr -onlret -ofill -ofdel nl0 cr0 tab0 bs0 vt0 ff0
isig icanon iexten echo echoe echok -echonl -noflsh -xcase -tostop -echoprt
echoctl echoke

None of the settings that differ from stty sane make a difference, though.

Answer 1

Edit2: http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?stty can help with regard to the stty output. I'd particularly look at your "min = 1" and the different echo* settings

You may wish to try some invocatoin of stty (your example looks a bit like a "stty cbreak" or "raw" mode). Try entering : stty sane

once fixed (if it works) you'll have an easier time to investigate

Edit1: After you added your stty -a settings, I'll show you what differs between yours and mine.

(note that I do mine on an old AIX xterm, so of course there are many differences! But it could point out the relevant one... I let you do the work to see which could be the culpript, as I don't have time right now, sorry!)

To do that, I listed all the keywords stty shows us in "WELIST", and then added a " " in front of every lines of each stty, and displayed them with :

for i in $( cat WELIST) ; do
   I_Have=$(grep "[ -]$i " IHAVE)
   You_Have=$(grep "[ -]$i " YOUHAVE)
   if [ "$I_Have" = "$You_Have" ]
   then
      printf "%-20s : %s\n" "$I_Have"   "BOTH"
   else
      if [ -z "$I_Have" ]
      then
         printf "%-20s : %s\n" "$You_Have" "ONLY you"
         continue
      fi
      if [ -z "$You_Have" ]
      then
         printf "%-20s : %s\n" "$I_Have"   "ONLY me"
         continue
      fi
      printf "%-20s : %s\n" "$I_Have"   "me"
      printf "%-20s : %s\n" "$You_Have" "you"
   fi
done

and it gives:

 brkint              : me
-brkint              : you
 bs0                 : ONLY you
 cdtrdsr             : ONLY you
-clocal              : BOTH
 179 columns         : me
 columns 160         : you
 cr0                 : ONLY you
 cread               : BOTH
-crtscts             : ONLY you
 cs8                 : BOTH
-cstopb              : BOTH
 discard = ^O        : ONLY me
 dsusp = ^Y          : ONLY me
 echo                : BOTH
-echoctl             : me
 echoctl             : you
-echoe               : me
 echoe               : you
-echok               : me
 echok               : you
-echoke              : me
 echoke              : you
-echonl              : BOTH
-echoprt             : BOTH
 eof = ^D            : BOTH
 eol = <undef>       : BOTH
 eol2 = <undef>      : BOTH
 erase = ^?          : BOTH
 eucw 1:1:0:0        : ONLY me
 ff0                 : ONLY you
 flush = ^O          : ONLY you
-flusho              : ONLY me
-hupcl               : me
 hupcl               : you
 icanon              : BOTH
 icrnl               : BOTH
-iexten              : me
 iexten              : you
-ignbrk              : BOTH
-igncr               : BOTH
-ignpar              : BOTH
-imaxbel             : BOTH
-inlcr               : BOTH
-inpck               : BOTH
 intr = ^C           : BOTH
 isig                : BOTH
-istrip              : BOTH
-iuclc               : BOTH
 iutf8               : ONLY you
-ixany               : BOTH
-ixoff               : BOTH
 ixon                : BOTH
 kill = ^U           : BOTH
 line = 0            : ONLY you
 lnext = ^V          : BOTH
 min = 1             : ONLY you
 nl0                 : ONLY you
-noflsh              : BOTH
-ocrnl               : BOTH
-ofdel               : BOTH
-ofill               : BOTH
-olcuc               : BOTH
 onlcr               : BOTH
-onlret              : BOTH
-onocr               : BOTH
 opost               : BOTH
-parenb              : BOTH
-parext              : ONLY me
-parmrk              : BOTH
-parodd              : BOTH
-pending             : ONLY me
 quit = ^\           : BOTH
 reprint = ^R        : ONLY me
 60 rows             : me
 rows 64             : you
 rprnt = ^R          : ONLY you
 scrw 1:1:0:0:       : ONLY me
 speed 38400 baud    : BOTH
 start = ^Q          : BOTH
 stop = ^S           : BOTH
 susp = ^Z           : BOTH
 swtch = <undef>     : ONLY you
 tab0                : ONLY you
 tab3                : ONLY me
 time = 0            : ONLY you
-tostop              : BOTH
 vt0                 : ONLY you
 werase = ^W         : BOTH
-xcase               : BOTH