Comment 6 for bug 271138

Two bits of further information:

I saw the text I typed into the login screen was briefly visible on a text virtual console that popped up when I killed gdm. It wasn't a vc with a getty running on it.

Also, if I configure gdm to auto-login then my gnome session does start up correctly, but again the keyboard is unresponsive the first time it starts after booting.

OK, the gdm processes are like this:

  1 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0...(no debugging symbols
  2 found)...done.
  3 [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
  4 [New Thread 0xb733c910 (LWP 7577)]
  5 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0
  6 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_compat.so.2...
  7 (no debugging symbols found)...done.
  8 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_compat.so.2
  9 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_nis.so.2...(no debugging symbols
 10 found)...done.
 11 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_nis.so.2
 12 Reading symbols from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_files.so.2...
 13 (no debugging symbols found)...done.
 14 Loaded symbols for /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libnss_files.so.2
 15 (no debugging symbols found)
 16 0xb7f24430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
 17 (gdb) bt
 18 #0 0xb7f24430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
 19 #1 0xb74c7dab in poll () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
 20 #2 0xb758fc32 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
 21 #3 0xb75902c2 in g_main_loop_run () from /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
 22 #4 0x08052d75 in ?? ()
 23 #5 0xb7407685 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
 24 #6 0x0804fe71 in ?? ()
 25 (gdb)

Reading symbols from /usr/lib/libck-connector.so.0...
(no debugging symbols found)...done.
Loaded symbols for /usr/lib/libck-connector.so.0
(no debugging symbols found)
0xb7f24430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
(gdb) bt
#0 0xb7f24430 in __kernel_vsyscall ()
#1 0xb74c2183 in read () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#2 0x080718a6 in ?? ()
#3 0x08062558 in ?? ()
#4 0x080792da in ?? ()
#5 0xb7f0578a in pam_get_user () from /lib/libpam.so.0
#6 0xb7f0d87a in ?? () from /lib/security/pam_nologin.so
#7 0xb7f0dacf in pam_sm_authenticate () from /lib/security/pam_nologin.so
#8 0xb7f023c1 in ?? () from /lib/libpam.so.0
#9 0xb7f01bdd in pam_authenticate () from /lib/libpam.so.0
#10 0x0807959b in ?? ()
#11 0x08065a5b in ?? ()
#12 0x0806c159 in ?? ()
#13 0x0805d658 in ?? ()
#14 0x080521fd in ?? ()
#15 0x08052d27 in ?? ()
#16 0xb7407685 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
#17 0x0804fe71 in ?? ()
(gdb)