Re: intermittently losing keyboard usability

["P. George" <invest juun com>]

> i'm running suse 9.0.  my boss installed it with only kde.  he later 
> allowed me to install gnome.  i used the yast "search" feature to 
> search for "gnome".  i checked every package that showed up in the 
> search results (meaning all packages with "gnome" in the name or in 
> the description) and installed them all.
>
> after adding "gnome" to the list shown in the login window, i am now 
> able to use it.  everything looks fantastic (haven't seen it in a few 
> versions) and works fantastic, BUT my keyboard cuts out on my 
> intermittently.  i can sort of reproduce it by typing in (for example) 
> GEdit, then opening ANY other process and typing in there.  when i 
> switch back to my GEdit window, i can't type.   Well...... sort of...  
> I can backspace over stuff that i've already typed, but nothing 
> else... as in no other printed characters show up on the screen.  In 
> GEdit, I'm just screwed.  However, I found a descent workaround for 
> other apps that allow me to launch multiple instances of themselves, 
> like gnome-terminal.  If i launch one instance of it and type, the 
> keyboard works properly.  Then, if i switch to another process (NOT 
> another instance of gnome-terminal), i'm fine there too.  When I 
> switch back to gnome-terminal, usually I cannot type anymore.  BUT, if 
> i then launch a second instance of gnome-terminal and type in there a 
> little bit, then switch DIRECTLY back to the first instance of 
> gnome-terminal, i can type again.  ....that is, until i try typing in 
> some other process' window again.  then i have to rinse & repeat.
>
> i've done a little googling, but i'm not finding this precise symptom 
> mentioned anywhere.
>
> has anyone seen this... or more importantly, know what i can do to fix 
> it?  ;-)
>
> NOTE:  the desktop manager is still set to "kdm" instead of "gdm."  
> not sure if my boss would be into me changing that, but if it's the 
> problem, tell me, please, and i'll just tell him that it's the only 
> way.


okay, it's not kdm.  i wiped a drive at home and installed suse 9.0 
with NO kde stuff, only gnome (and ALL of it).  when i boot up i get 
the slick looking new gdm login screen.  i used it for a couple hours 
late last night to see if the problem persists on my own clean install. 
 it does, though it didn't seem as bad.

i got some sleep, went to class, then to work.  i just got back and 
woke the monitor from sleep by shaking the mouse.  it was sitting at 
the gdm login screen, where i left it last night.  but it wouldn't let 
me type into the username field.  nothing i fiddled with would change 
this.  reboot... same thing.  reboot to runlevel 3, then login at the 
commandline an start gdm... same thing.  the only thing i could do was 
boot to runlevel 3, login at the commandline, and then startx, which 
bypasses the gui login and takes me directly into my gnome desktop 
environment.  then the problem is there, but i can use the workaround 
(detailed in the original post) to at least get some work done.

no one replied to my post last night, so i'm hoping this new info will 
spark something in here.

anyone know what the deal is?

thanks.

- philip


in the meantime, i guess it would be wise for me to run all the suse 
updates.  maybe this problem has been fixed already.  ;-)