Comment 26 for bug 460328

OK, so how would this work:

 * We keep gdm as it is; gdm is responsible for picking _one_ layout which is the one used for entering the password, and the one which is active when you log into the session.

 * We fix g-s-d to read the system default layout(s) and add them to gconf

 * Afterwards we keep the current g-s-d behavior of evaluating $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT to see which of the available layouts should be selected.

As far as I can see, this will fix the original problem, avoid situations with empty gconf values which break the layout indicator and layout switching, and avoid intrusive patches and even more complex behaviour for $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT.