Linux Terminal: typing feedback gone, line breaks not displayed

Execute the command reset and your terminal should be restored (reference).

This issue happens generally when dumping binary data to the terminal STDOUT which when the escape codes received are processed can do anything from change the color of the text, disable echo, even change character set.

The easy way to avoid this is to ensure you do not dump unknown binary data to the terminal, and if you must then convert it to hexadecimal to ensure it doesn't change the terminal settings.

To elaborate on Joshua Briefman's answer, executing reset -c will only reset the control characters responsible for your problem:

tset, reset - terminal initialization

Usage: tset [options] [terminal]Options:  -c          set control characters  -e ch       erase character  -I          no initialization strings  -i ch       interrupt character  -k ch       kill character  -m mapping  map identifier to type  -Q          do not output control key settings  -r          display term on stderr  -s          output TERM set command  -V          print curses-version  -w          set window-size

Also note the following form the command's manual:

Note, you may have to type

<LF>reset<LF>

(the line-feed character is normally control-J) to get the terminal to work, as carriage-return may no longer work in the abnormal state. Also, the terminal will often not echo the command.