Comment 5 for bug 767168

I have this same problem (on Ubuntu Server 11.10), and the fix did not work for me. I am also on a solid state drive with minimal install.

At this step: "Press Ctrl-Alt-F7 (should still display working X display) gives black screen, and typing causes code to appear depending upon keys pressed", pressing 2 or Enter causes xdm to restart (mentioned in several on-and-off plymouth bugs not obviously related).

I can tentatively confirm Xorg is running on vt7 (don't 100% know what I'm doing, but it's in "ps aux" and "Xorg.0.log" before and after restart)

From the linked forum bog post about the fix - I can confirm that if I type into xdm quickly, it skips the beginning of my login on tty1.

If I switch to tty2 and log in, input is also mirrored to tty7.

Installing slim in place of xdm seemed to fix the problem--I don't urgently need the bug fixed, but if more info is needed (or if I'm experiencing a different bug), let me know and I can post more details.