No, It's not about 'noclear' - at least it doesn't seem that way. Upon upgrade from util-linux-2.19.1-r1, initial login at console (which - AFAIK - is controlled by agetty) changed behavior. The change is that before backspace stopped at '<hostname> login:', now it moves through the text (though it does not delete it). It's a bit confusing, if you make a typo as you try to log in and you're trying to correct it. Is that an intended change ?
that does not sound correct to me. i'll have to play around a bit though.
i can't confirm this behavior. how exactly are you launching agetty ?
Well, I haven't changed the default line much: c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty --noclear 38400 tty1 linux (though I see the problem regardless of '--noclear' and tbh. I don't really need '--noclear')
what is your /etc/issue ? and what prompt do you actually see ?
Well, atm. I'm using the standard one: "This is \n.\O (\s \m \r) \t" This turns atm. into "This is blackspire.unknown_domain (Linux i686 3.1.0-gentoo) <curent time>" followed in the new line by: "blackspire login:". Right now I can backspace through the last line without deleting it.
i've tried on a few systems and can't reproduce anywhere does it happen on all tty's ? if you hit enter a few times, does it happen with the new prompts ?
If you mean "does it happen once 'Maximum number of tries exceeded' is emitted and prompt is restarted", then the answer is yes. If you mean "does int happen while login has already been invoked", the answer is not till the prompt is restarted. So, it does strongly hint at agetty. My keymap/font settings might play a role: keymap="pl2" windowkeys="YES" extended_keymaps="backspace" dumpkeys_charset="iso-8859-2" fix_euro="NO" consolefont="lat2a-16" consoletranslation="trivial" (needed cause the embedded has been broken for ages) unicodemap="lat2u"
Now, for a funny note: I'm setting up an amd64 machine - it's not *fully* working yet, still the bug is reproducible even there. As the original machine was x86, the bug seems to have much wider range, than I expected. Different video cards too, though both in KMS.