problems after xorg 7.3 upgrade ('b', 'n' keys don't work)

[Chris Shenton]

Robert Huff <roberthuff at rcn.com> writes:

> 	After what I had thought was a successful upgrade from 7.2 over
> the weekend, xorg 7.3 is having major problems.
> 	The basic problems are:
> 	a) the keyboard.  Some keys ('e', 'n', 'b', 'm', and others)
> register randomly; others work in some combinations but not others.
> For example: <up arrow>/<down arrow> + <left Ctl> works correctly,
> while <up arrow>/<down arrow> + <right Ctl> has no effect.

Mike Harding and Ed Schouten and I reported the same problem.  Ed
describes it well at:

http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A-Wanted---pointers-re-where-to-look-for-keyboard-bug.-tf4622905.html#a13202110

The other day I tried it on a diskless system I have in the kitchen --
it mounts the same Xorg and filesystem and so on from my main
server... and it worked like a charm.  So Xorg is not completely broken,
it's something else: hardware, driver, config?  I had switched keyboards
on the ailing system before so didn't suspect that.

Today, I removed the Xorg config file for the problematic system
(xorg.conf.MyHostname) and used xorgconfig to create a new one in
/etc/X11/, which worked fine.  I merged in some of my old configs.

But what I noticed I could NOT do was something I was told to use in
xorg to allow VT switching by Ctl-Alt-Fn:

  Section "ServerFlags"
      Option	"DontVTSwitch"	"false"
      Option	"XkbDisable"	"true"	
  EndSection

I can still specify the first Option, but it does nothing: I cannot
switch VTs -- key sequences are sent to the X11 client app.

If I try to use the second Option, then I get the broken keys, repeat,
and other defects.  So I've commented out this line.  

At least now I can use 7.3: I'll trade working keys for broken VT switching.

I don't know if this can be addressed with xkeyboard-config (in ports,
but not installed in my system) or not.