I've noticed that under Solaris, when I log into the console it has
the tty settings I expect.

When I start up openwin, the xterms seem to have random tty settings.
NetBSD has similar problems if I remember right.  Problems are
most apparent with backspace/erase character.

Is there a good answer to this?  Do I have to put "stty" commands in
my .profile, customized for each OS's stty syntax?

If this is the case, is there a better solution?  Maybe a boot-time
file which init (?) uses to set up the [pt]ty defaults?

This was spurred by a discussion on the tech-kern NetBSD list,
but I think my question is pretty basic so I cc'ed current-users
instead.  Please remove them from your CC if you're replying from
usenet.