What are the contents of the /etc/sysconfig/i18n file?

There doesn't seem to be an /etc/sysconfig/i18n file on my machine.  A quick
'locate i18n' reveals a /usr/share/i18n directory full of stuff, and a few other
files, but nothing solely named i18n.

I discovered recently that running sndconfig, which on the console exhibits the
same garbage chars as linuxconf, will not have the errors when run from X.  In
other words, in an Eterm in Gnome, sndconfig will render correctly, but when run
from the console it will look like hell.  I'm sure the same could be said for
linuxconf, except that linuxconf uses an X based gui when run in a terminal
window under X, not the character based gui.

OK, can you give me the output of
echo $TERM
echo $LANG
echo $LINGUAS
env | grep LC
rpm -V ncurses

The output of the requested commands when run at the console just after logging
in as either myself or as root is as follows:

----------OUTPUT HERE----------
# echo $TERM
linux
# echo $LANG

# echo $LINGUAS

# env | grep LC
# rpm -V ncurses
----------END OUTPUT ----------

I ran it in X also, from an Eterm, just to see what's different there and got
this:

----------OUTPUT HERE----------
# echo $TERM
xterm
# echo $LANG

# echo $LINGUAS

# env | grep LC
# rpm -V ncurses
----------END OUTPUT ----------


Note that $LANG and $LINGUAS are outputting blank lines, while the last two
commands have no output.

Sigh.  How about the output of
cat /etc/conf.linuxconf

The output of `cat /etc/conf.linuxconf` is:

---------OUTPUT---------
[base]
LINUXCONF.distribution redhat
notice.10-welcome.help 894567546
module.list 1 redhatppp
module.list 1 modemconf
module.list 1 treemenu
module.list 1 inittab
module.list 1 motd
module.list 1 mailconf
module.list 1 apache
module.list 1 samba
[netclient]
DNSCONF.dnsneeded 1
[noarch]
linuxconf.lastlang
---------END OUTPUT---------

There is also an /etc/conf.linuxconf.rpmnew, but it only has this in it:

---------OUTPUT---------
LINUXCONF.distribution redhat

---------END OUTPUT---------

Is gecko installed?  If so, remove it.  (rpm -e gecko)

gecko is not installed.  I believe that it was after my upgrade to 6.1, but I
already removed it because of a technical support document I read on this site
that indicated it might be related to this problem.

----------OUTPUT HERE-----------
# rpm -q gecko
package gecko is not installed
# rpm -qa | grep -i gecko
# locate gecko
# rpm -e gecko
error: package gecko is not installed
----------END OUTPUT------------

Can you do
strace -o /tmp/strace.lc /bin/linuxconf
And immediately quit out of linuxconf?  Rather than post that large
output file here, mail it to me:
gzip -9 /tmp/strace.lc
uuencode /tmp/strace.lc.gz strace.lc.gz | \
  mail -s 'bug 6509 strace output' johnsonm@redhat.com

Thanks for the strace output.  Here's your bug:

open("/root/.terminfo/l/linux", O_RDONLY) = 15
read(15, "\32\1\36\0\35\0\20\0}\1m\2", 12) = 12

I don't know why you have a /root/.terminfo/
there, but it's buggy somehow.  I presume that
you have the $TERMINFO environment variable
set? You'll either have to get rid of that
environment variable, or perhaps get rid of the
directory (rm -rf /root/.terminfo) or fix the
terminfo files in your directory.  I say "files"
since x/xterm is clearly also broken.

Indeed.  Removing /root/.terminfo does solve the problem.  I don't know why it
was there.  There was no $TERMINFO variable set.

Problem solved.  Thanks.