We run VMware Server on a Linux host - in my case Ubuntu 8.04 (which I know is not officially supported.......). This post is submitted because the issue is also a problem on support distributions (like Suse).
Briefly when toggling between the VM in the console and the host, especially when the VM has been in "full screen", on reverting to the host, the keyboard behaviour is modified. If one is lucky, everything is locked in lowercase - which makes a lot operating system keys impossible to access (|&% etc etc). If one is unlucky, any attempt to enter any key results in the app being accessed closing down instantly.
The quick and dirty fix is to open a terminal before starting the VM Server console, and when confronted with the issue, to type "setxkbmap" in the terminal. This seems to fix things until the next time one toggles between VM and host - when setxkbmap can be run again and so on.
An alternative is simply to log out of the x windows session and start again; if the VM servers are set up appropriately, they will still be running.
Neither work around is at all satisfactory.
The strange thing is that this never used to happen. When I first started using VM Server (v 1.01 / 1.02) there were no problems of this nature.
For more information, take a look at this link:-
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/source/xorg/bug/195982
(note that its not exclusively unsupported Ubuntu installions which are referenced in these posts ).
If you can shed a little light on this please do. There are a lot if VM Server users running it on various flavours of Linux, especially Debian or its derivatives (like Ubuntu).
Even if there is no formal support, a helpful gesture here would be much appreciated.
Thanks
ML