"modern" KVM that works?

[David Rysdam]

Back in my day we had it bad. Uphill to school, analog phones, etc. But
our KVMs were simple AB hardware switches and we liked it, by gum.

Today, I'm trying to hook up a VGA-only desktop and an HDMI-only
Raspberry Pi to a VGA/DVI monitor with USB keyboard and mouse.

Many options, but I eventually decided on a combination HDMI->VGA
converter (powered and active) and this KVM:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817107417

Forget about the Pi and the converter for a minute, because just the KVM
won't work right.

If you boot the computer up "normally" (i.e. no KVM in the loop) and
then connect the KVM, it works great. If you boot up with the KVM in the
loop, the screen goes into power save right before/as the video card
goes into graphics mode. After a series of experiments, it has been
determined that gdm3 is not really running there, but it does pop up if
you switch the KVM out the loop without powering down. Putting the KVM
back in the loop then and it works as expected.

I don't know much about what happens between the normal bootup and when
gdm starts running (this is on Debian 6), but I'm guessing there's a
hardware detect going on that the KVM is failing to negotiate. Any
ideas?

(As I was writing this email, I realized I could use a KVM just for the
K&M and let the dual input monitor handle the two Vs. But that would
require two "switching actions" for the user, so I'd rather get this
thing working if I can.)