This is probably caused by russian keymap I selected when installing. Repro: 1. Proceed to make menuconfig stage 2. Enter make menuconfig 3. Configure the kernel 4. Try to save kernel config, make a typo in directory name. Result: It won't allow you to save. Neither backspace nor delete work, so you can't change directory name either. Worse yet, if you create that "wrong" directory, it won't save the config anyway. You can't cancel action, you can't change what you typed in. Ctrl+C is only solution, but then you'll have to reconfigure the kernel. Expected result: Cancel should be possible from this step. Backspace and delete should work.
did you perhaps try loading a diff keymap ?
if keymap change doesn't help, sounds like a bug for the Linux Kernel mailing list - linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org.
this isn't our problem, it is a console emulation bug. Try ctrl-h to backspace, or don't make typos ;-)
Hi! I had the same issue (backspace was not working on any text input in "make menuconfig", not just the save as alternate file). I solved uncommenting EXTENDED_KEYMAPS="" in /etc/conf.d/keymaps and commenting out EXTENDED_KEYMAPS="backapace keypad euro" which was there by default after installing Gentoo 2007.0 via the installer found on the LiveCD.
