It seems en_US.utf8 is not a legal locale in Sarge for Xlib; when I changed to en_US.UTF-8 the problem went away. I'll bet some locale call is failing without its return code being checked.
I got clued in by acroread: (acroread:19367): Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by Xlib (acroread:19367): Gdk-WARNING **: cannot set locale modifiers Sorry about the bad email address - switched companies but not computers, so reportbug had an old config. -- Rob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]