After editing /etc/conf.d/net and rebooting the computer, keyboard became completely unresponsive when gdm started up. The mouse worked, but the keyboard and all three LEDs did not work. This prevented normal login. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Edit /etc/conf.d/net by changing the default "config_eth0=( "dhcp" )" to a static ip address. 2. Reboot the computer 3. Wait for gdm to log in to a GNOME session Actual Results: Couldn't log in normally since something with gdm locked up the keyboard. Expected Results: The keyboard to be functioning normally when gdm starts. /etc/conf.d/net: The change in the file is quite simply changing the default of config_eth0=( "dhcp" ) dhcp_eth0="nodns nontp nonis" with config_eth0=( "192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 brd 192.168.1.255" ) routes_eth0=( "default via 192.168.1.1" ) Keyboard and mouse are PS/2. Keyboard using evdev driver (although testing with the kbd driver did not yield different results). Some searching through Bugzilla yielded a similar bug: 215628 I don't have enough experience to be able to confirm whether it is the same bug. What strikes me as interesting is that if /etc/conf.d/net is loaded with its default values (of dhcp stuff) the bug doesn't manifest itself. emerge --info Portage 2.2_rc6 (default/linux/x86/2008.0, gcc-4.3.1, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r0, 2.6.26-gentoo i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.26-gentoo-i686-Intel-R-_Pentium-R-_4_CPU_2.93GHz-with-glibc2.0 Timestamp of tree: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:45:01 +0000 app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.6-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.5.2-r7 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.0 sys-apps/openrc: 0.2.5 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r3 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.62-r1 sys-devel/automake: 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.4 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.25-r4 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -mtune=prescott -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -mtune=prescott -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="distlocks parallel-fetch preserve-libs sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.osuosl.org/ " LANG="C" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.namerica.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X aac acl acpi alsa ao asf avahi avi berkdb bzip2 bzlib cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus doc dri dvd dvdr esd fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 hal iconv ipv6 isdnlog jack java javascript joystick jpeg mdnsresponder-compat midi mmx mp3 mpeg mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openmp pam pango pcre perl png portaudio posix pppd python qt3 qt4 quicktime readline reflection samba sdl session sox spl sse sse2 ssl svg svga symlink sysfs tcpd tiff timidity truetype unicode usb videos vorbis win32codecs wmf x86 xorg xulrunner zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse joystick" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="i810 vesa fbdev" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
The workaround from the debianhelp page in the URL page is also valid. By running "XDMCP chooser" and canceling out, the keyboard begins to function correctly in gdm, thus allowing me to continue into a session.
Another note: The keyboard begins to function once the XDMCP chooser is initiated. By exiting the X server (Ctrl-alt-backspace) or canceling out of the chooser (which apparently does the same thing; I don't know the inner workings of the chooser), gdm is restarted and the keyboard is functional once more, allowing me to login and start a session.
It appears that the order GDM is loaded does matter. To "optimize" GDM, I had added it to the "boot" runlevel. By placing it in the "default" runlevel, it began to work as expected.
no wonder it didn't work :)
The thing is, I obtained this "optimization" from one of the many Gentoo wiki sites. Also, the problem doesn't manifest itself unless I modified /etc/conf.d/net. That, I would say, is odd. I'm just glad it's working now.
For the record, the various Gentoo wiki articles are almost never written by Gentoo developers. Some articles may be very good, some very dangerous. YMMV.
