MC doesn't give a subshell for normal users

[Степан Кузнецов <skuzn polarbearcub ru>]

   Hello.
 The bug is: when I enter mc as a normal user, it doesn't open a subshell.  
Instead of it, it just shows a '$' symbol and I cannot toggle the bars: it
says: Error. Not an xterm or Linux console; the panels cannot be toggled.
'tty' reports a normal (not pseudo) TTY. 
== info ==
$ echo $TERM
linux
$ mc -V
GNU Midnight Commander 4.6.0
Virtual File System: tarfs, extfs, cpiofs, ftpfs, fish
With builtin Editor
Using system-installed S-Lang library with terminfo database
With subshell support as default
With support for background operations
With mouse support on xterm and Linux console
With support for X11 events
With internationalization support
$ ps -auwwx | grep gpm
root    16435   0.0     0.1     1356    508     ?       S       21:59           0:00            
/usr/local/sbin/gpm -tps2 -m/dev/psaux
$ env
HZ=100
SHELL=/bin/bash
TERM=linux
HUSHLOGIN=FALSE
USER=foo
MAIL=/var/spool/mail/foo
PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin
PWD=/home/foo
SHLVL=1
HOME=/home/foo
LOGNAME=foo
_=/usr/bin/env
== system ==
Home-brewed LFS-like system
$ uname -a
Linux linuxoid 2.4.21-ac1 #3 Fri Jun 20 00:49:16 UTC 2003 i686 unknown
===
Note that under root everything is O.K.

                        -- Sincerely, Steve L. Kuznetsov

P.S. don't worry about the cyrillic letters in the 'from' field
P.S.S. On another system, ASPLinux 7.3/Vostok (kernel 2.4.18-6mdk) the same version of mc works fine.
p.s.s.s. sorry, if this topic was just discussed. I'm a newbie here.