Bug#462572: gdm: leaves tty8 in scancode mode, disabling the text console input, including VT switch

[A B]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.20.3-1
Severity: normal


To reproduce:

Run a 2nd user session with the change user option in the
System menu of the gnome panel. Logoff this new user. GDM leaves the
state of the underlying tty (usually tty8) in scancode keyboard mode.
Nothing bad happens until you switch to tty8 for any reason. Then
the keyboard won't respond anymore, including the VT switch feature.

For the average user, it's now the power off button.

To recover from that, use right-alt + sys + r (magic sysrq unRaw) if
available or login from remote and type kbd_mode -u (or kbd_mode -a).
kbd_mode alone will confirm that the state was scancode when usually
it's UTF-8 (or ASCII) for a text console.

A.B.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (600, 'testing'), (500, 'oldstable'), (50, 'unstable'), (10, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-strider (SMP w/2 CPU cores; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.105            add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]   1.5.18           Debian configuration management sy
ii  gksu                    2.0.0-5          graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session           2.20.2-1         The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-termi 2.18.4-1         The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  kterm [x-terminal-emula 6.2.0-46         Multi-lingual terminal emulator fo
ii  kwin [x-window-manager] 4:3.5.8.dfsg.1-2 the KDE window manager
ii  libart-2.0-2            2.3.19-3         Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0             1.20.0-1         The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1                1:2.4.39-1       Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6                   2.7-6            GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2               1.4.10-1         The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3             1.1.2-1          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2        0.74-1           simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdmx1                 1:1.0.2-2        X11 Distributed Multihead extensio
ii  libfontconfig1          2.5.0-2          generic font configuration library
ii  libglade2-0             1:2.6.2-1        library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0            2.14.3-1         The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0       2.20.1.1-1       A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgtk2.0-0             2.12.1-1         The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libpam-modules          0.99.7.1-5       Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime          0.99.7.1-5       Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g                0.99.7.1-5       Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0           1.18.4-1         Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  librsvg2-2              2.18.2-1         SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  librsvg2-common         2.18.2-1         SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1             2.0.15-2+b1      SELinux shared libraries
ii  libwrap0                7.6.dbs-14       Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6                2:1.0.3-7        X11 client-side library
ii  libxau6                 1:1.0.3-2        X11 authorisation library
ii  libxdmcp6               1:1.0.2-2        X11 Display Manager Control Protoc
ii  libxext6                1:1.0.3-2        X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxi6                  2:1.1.3-1        X11 Input extension library
ii  libxinerama1            1:1.0.2-1        X11 Xinerama extension library
ii  libxml2                 2.6.30.dfsg-3.1  GNOME XML library
ii  lsb-base                3.1-24           Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  metacity [x-window-mana 1:2.20.2-1       A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  mlterm [x-terminal-emul 2.9.4-1          MultiLingual TERMinal
ii  openbox [x-window-manag 3.4.4-3          standards compliant, fast, light-w
ii  wmaker [x-window-manage 0.92.0-7         NeXTSTEP-like window manager for X
ii  xfwm4 [x-window-manager 4.4.2-1          window manager of the Xfce project
ii  xterm [x-terminal-emula 231-1            X terminal emulator

Versions of packages gdm recommends:
ii  dialog                    1.1-20071028-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  gdm-themes                0.5.1          Themes for the GNOME Display Manag
ii  whiptail                  0.52.2-11.1    Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
pn  xserver-xephyr | xnest    <none>         (no description available)
ii  xserver-xorg              1:7.2-5        the X.Org X server
ii  zenity                    2.20.1-1       Display graphical dialog boxes fro

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm