Emacs weirdness at console

[Robert Storey]

I'm a Linux refugee, and I confess to being new at FreeBSD.

I've used Emacs a lot over the past few years under Linux. What I've noticed in FreeBSD is that Emacs barely works at the console, yet it works fine under X. A crucial problem (in the console) is that the ALT key (or M- key in Emacs parlance) just doesn't work at all. That's pretty major - without that key, about half the Emacs commands are inaccessible. The CTRL key (C- ) does work as expected. Again, in X, all is well with Emacs.

Any suggestions on this are most welcome.

regards,
Robert