> http://www.3111skyline.com/dl/dt/trinity/ss/kdm-chooser-OK.jpg
> 
>   That has been it this whole time!! When did tsak
> begin killing the graphical login? Moreover, why did that "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to begin"
> (pop-under) the main xdg chooser window so many time before it finally gave me
> the dialog? I must have started tdm/kdm 15 times and it never gave me the
> "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to begin" before. That's weird...
> 
>   Oh, well, at least we know what the culprit.

Serious work went into updating tsak after 3.5.13. I don't know all of the patches but there were many. I don't know whether those patches can be backported. Check bug reports 898 and 906 for most of the fixes.

Darrell