xterm и проблема с клавишей Delete (xdm vs startx)

Покажи, что у тебя в Xsession?

#!/bin/sh
# $XFree86: xc/programs/xdm/config/Xsession

export LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8"

# redirect errors to a file in user's home directory if we can
for errfile in "$HOME/.xsession-errors" "${TMPDIR-/tmp}/xses-$USER" "/tmp/xses-$USER"
do
	if ( cp /dev/null "$errfile" 2> /dev/null )
	then
		chmod 600 "$errfile"
		exec > "$errfile" 2>&1
		break
	fi
done

case $# in
1)
	case $1 in
	failsafe)
		exec xterm -geometry 80x24-0-0
		;;
	esac
esac

#  The startup script is not intended to have arguments.

startup=$HOME/.xsession
userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermodmap=$HOME/.xmodmap

if [ -f $userresources ]; then
    xrdb -merge $userresources
fi

if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then
    xmodmap $usermodmap
fi

if [ -s "$startup" ]; then
	if [ -x "$startup" ]; then
		exec "$startup"
	else
		exec /bin/sh "$startup"
	fi
else
	exec openbox
fi

#!/bin/sh
# ~/.xsession
/usr/X11R6/bin/xsetroot -solid rgb:00/44/22
/usr/bin/torsmo
exec /usr/bin/openbox

понятно, попробуй заменить exec openbox на exec /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/openbox", успехов ;)