[ale] Upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 desktop breaks 'gdm' login

[John Mills]

ALErs -

I recently upgraded from up-to-date Ubuntu-9.04 to -9.10 and now find the 
gdm (X11) authorization is broken.

First crack out of the box I had a fatal error related to 
'padlock_sha2.ko' [or close] not being available. I put an entry in 
'/etc/modprobe/aliases.conf' to the effect of: 'alias sha256 
sha256_generic' and now see messages that 'gdm-session-worker' is unable 
to open /etc/pam.d/[gdm or common_pamkeyring] and complaints that 'VIA 
Padlock Hash Engine not detected' and 'VIA Padlock not detected'.

I do have console logins so I can work on the system.

'aptitude' didn't return anything against 'padlock_sha'.

Has anyone out there worked this through?

Could I just revert the box to -9.04 some way? That might be the best 
stopgap.

System is an old Dell.

TIA.

  - Mills