I am running Ubuntu Server on VirtualBox. I am not using X Windows, only the command line. It looks like it is redrawing the screen for every line that causes the screen to shift down. In other words if there is empty space on the screen below the current line, it works normally, but if the current line is at the bottom of the screen, when the system moves to the next line it refreshes the whole screen line by line. This causes the system to run very slowly because I have to wait for the whole screen to refresh for every line and it hits the CPU at 90%.

I installed Debian Lenny in VirtualBox and it didn't do this.

Why does Ubuntu Server redraw the screen for each line? Is there a way to make this behaviour go away?