Can't type into queries

Hey, I'm just going to throw this out here to see if I have any fellow
sufferers, and to hopefully get some tips on efficiently debugging the problem.

I am running Debian unstable on a Thinkpad R51. Debian is updated and upgraded.
Ion is 3rc-20071220. However, I also had this problem on Debian testing and some
unknown ion snapshot. And before that, I had it with Debian's packaged ion3, but
now we're getting into ancient history. The point is, this problem has persisted
over multiple versions and a couple fresh installs of operating systems. (But
always on the same laptop. I installed ion3 on Cygwin[1] and it works fine, iirc.)

The problem is that I can't type into queries. Well, let me refine that. First,
I can open queries with F3, F4, etc. no problem. Further, tab works. Arrow keys
work. Backspace even works! But alphanumerics do not.

Like I said, I'm just throwing this out there. I haven't done any debugging at
all. I just wanted to see if I suffer alone.

-Bryan
aka chreekat