I have a fix. It turns out that xdm is so fast when initializing (thanks to it being lightweight + the Plymouth/DRM/kernel mode-setting stack) that it seems to expose a bug in that stack when tty7 (xdm) is initialized before tty1-tty6 (getty). This is why this bug is only seen by people using xdm as opposed to gdm.
First, remove the misplaced xdm startup script: $ sudo update-rc.d -f xdm remove Then, create /etc/init/xdm.conf with the following content: start on (started tty1 and started tty2 and started tty3 and started tty4 and started tty5 and started tty6) expect fork exec /usr/bin/xdm This waits for all 6 getty instances to be launched before launching xdm, and solves the problem completely for me. I posted about my maddening experience to track down this bug here: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=59 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu-X, which is subscribed to xdm in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/767168 Title: xdm keyboard input appears on tty1 and ctrl-alt-f7 gives black screen with text when typing To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xdm/+bug/767168/+subscriptions _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat Post to : ubuntu-x-swat@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
