If openssh-askpass-gnome is not installed, the plain X11 version from  
openssh-askpass doesn't seem to be used instead of it out of the box, which  
causes problems here and there where a console is not available for asking 
passphrases. 
   
This would be trivially solved by a couple of new /etc/profile.d snippets:   
   
x11-ssh-askpass.sh:   
if [ -z "$SSH_ASKPASS" ] ; then   
    SSH_ASKPASS=/usr/libexec/openssh/x11-ssh-askpass   
    export SSH_ASKPASS   
fi   
   
x11-ssh-askpass.csh:   
if ( $?SSH_ASKPASS ) then   
    exit   
endif   
setenv SSH_ASKPASS /usr/libexec/openssh/x11-ssh-askpass