issues after installing Etch

[subopt@gmail.com]

My new install of Etch has a few issues.

[1] Even though my keyboard mapping is correct, xterms and rxvt's
don't have the Alt key mapped to Meta, like other apps do
(emacs/xemacs, etc). Checked the keymapping in xkeycaps, and it was
right. How do i fix the way terminals (and console mode, too) read the
Alt key? I've tried fixing the console key mapping --tried all the
available US mappings, in fact. None of them helped. A possible clue:
The X versions of Xemacs and GnuEmacs work fine, but when i run either
of
them in console mode in an xterm they don't. Also, here's what some of
the Alt/Meta key combos yield in xterms:

    Alt and   yields
    -------     ------
        b          â
        f          æ
        d          ä

I'm at my wit's end on this. I'll name my next batch of beer after the
first person w/the solution.


[2] I installed sawfish, and got it configured mostly. Can't do Alt-F1
or Alt-F2 to get the Gnome popups for menu and 'run' (or whatever it's
called). Any hints on this? It worked great on the Slackware 10.0 that
i'm migrating from. No idea what's blocking it.


thanks in advance,
Eric