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.


thanks.

- philip