KDE2/Gnome GL differences

[Michael Epting <epting@ix.netcom.com>]

I've been trying to solve my problem of unusable virtual consoles 
(the F1 through F6 ones) in XF 4.01 for weeks now.  At one point
I decided that it was a chipset problem, but I have since swapped
motherboards and the problem was unchanged.  I'm a Gnome user, but
I've also been trying out the KDE2 debs and yesterday I noticed
that the consoles work OK in KDE2 but are still broken in Gnome.

I copied some XFree86.0.log files and diff'ed them, finding no 
significant differences.  Then I saved the output of xdpyinfo in 
KDE2 and in Gnome and got this difference:

< focus:  window 0x1e00009, revert to PointerRoot
---
> focus:  window 0x140001b, revert to Parent
66,70c66,70
< current input event mask:    0xf84033
<  KeyPressMask          KeyReleaseMask   EnterWindowMask
<  LeaveWindowMask       KeymapStateMask  SubstructureNotifyMask
<  SubstructureRedirectMask FocusChangeMask PropertyChangeMask
<  ColormapChangeMask       
---
> current input event mask:    0x5a20bd
>  KeyPressMask         ButtonPressMask  ButtonReleaseMask        
>  EnterWindowMask      LeaveWindowMask  PointerMotionHintMask
>  ButtonMotionMask     StructureNotifyMask SubstructureNotifyMask
>  SubstructureRedirectMask PropertyChangeMask       

One other symptom:  tuxracer works great in KDE2, but in Gnome,
the keyboard controls don't work, although the mouse does.

So, I'm suspecting that the problem is the focus difference.  Does
anybody know how to set this in Gnome?  The sawfish focus dialog
in the Gnome Control Center doesn't seem to change it.