Update destroys keyboard configuration in a strange way

[STurtle]

I just did an online update, about 1 hour ago, as usual via

YaST -> Software -> Update All Packages (if newer available)

and upon reboot my keyboard suddenly has a strange keyboard layout, using several dead keys, which is annoying when coding. E.g. shift+2 produces ¨ (diaresis) on second press and composes on first. I don´t want that!

No big deal, I thought, but checking /etc/X11/xorg.conf show my choosen setup as before and also my tweaked file /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/gb is also still correct, although I did overwrite it with a copy, just to be sure.

So what else is affecting my keyboard setting? How do I get back to previous behaviour, which was perfectly fine?

I am using Suse11.1(64bit).

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout[all]"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    InputDevice    "Keyboard[0]" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse[1]" "CorePointer"
    InputDevice    "Mouse[3]" "SendCoreEvents"
    Option         "Clone" "off"
    Option         "Xinerama" "off"
EndSection

...

Section "InputDevice"
  Driver       "kbd"
  Identifier   "Keyboard[0]"
  Option       "Protocol" "Standard"
  Option       "XkbLayout" "gb,de"
  Option       "XkbModel" "cymotionlinux"
  Option       "XkbOptions" "grp:shifts_toggle,grp_led:scroll,compose:rwin,eurosign:e"
  Option       "XkbRules" "xfree86"
  Option       "XkbVariant" "uk,basic"
EndSection

This is all as I set it, and the second "de" variant is still working fine and accessible by pressing both shift keys, but the "gb" variant is heavily messed up.

Anyone any ideas what happened?

[pandarsson]

Do you use KDE4? If so, try changing the keyboard layout in systemsettings. I was wondering for a long time what the heck was wrong with one of my keyboards when I realized this.

[STurtle]

Yes, I do use KDE4. Duh!

I looked at the KDE4 settings, and searched for it under Keyboard & Mouse and Advanced->KeyCombinations/Solid, etc., but could not find the relevant setting, believing that it had been dropped between 3.5 and 4.1. Of course, I had forgotten that KDE has the keyboard layout setting sorted under "Country&Language" settings...

Anyway, I only realised this after reading your post, so many thanks for resolving this for me!


(EDIT: The update had somehow changed the layout variant from "basic" to "intl". Setting it back returned the keyboard behaviour to normal. Phew!)

[pandarsson]

Not a problem. It took me quite a while before I noticed that. Actually, mine was just set to the wrong keyboard model. I kept running SaX over and over to make sure it had the right model listed.

When I finally figured it out, I was pretty creative with my cursing.

[Cloddy]

pandarsson wrote:

>
> Not a problem. It took me quite a while before I noticed that.
> Actually, mine was just set to the wrong keyboard model. I kept running
> SaX over and over to make sure it had the right model listed.
>
> When I finally figured it out, I was pretty creative with my cursing.
>
>
>

You won't be able to use that cure in 11.2 as keyboard and mouse
configuration have been dropped from SAX.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. E-mail: newsman not newsboy
"I wear the cheese. It does not wear me."