Alt-Gr. Keyboard layouts not working as expected

English Hardware
1

Hello, I am a new openSUSE user. I mostly got openSUSE setup and running nicely with KDE. There is one thing bothering me, though. I need German special characters and I am using a Keyboard with US Layout.

I am used to the US international layout with the AltGr key (dead keys) for special characters. Currently I am using “EurKey (US)” (selected in KDE settings) which is pretty similar, even more intuitive. On kubuntu I could press AltGr + s to get “ß” or AltGr + u for “ü”. For some reason on openSUSE I get “ŝ” and “ŭ” respectively, instead of the before mentioned characters.

I have setup a compose key on the right CTRL key to somewhat mitigate this. But is there a way to actually fix this? In YaST I have setup the system keyboard layout as “English (US)”. I have noticed that KDE keyboard settings and the YaST settings seem to overwrite each other? Whenever I change the layout in YaST it seems to be applied directly to my current user for some reason. When I change the layout in the KDE settings this seems to overwrite YaST again. Could the issue arise because of how these two settings interact?

I hope someone can give me some hints towards a solution for my keyboard layout issues. Other than that my experience with openSUSE has been nice and smooth :slight_smile:.

2

Hi LinuxGuy1337 Welcome to the forums. As you are using KDE, you have the option to set up more than one keyboard layout in System Settings>Input Devices>Keyboard>Layouts>Configure Layouts. The flag of the keyboard layout you are using should appear in the System Tray.
I generally find that swapping to the QWERTZ keyboard when typing German is the easiest way of typing German words or sentences but you can change letter by letter if you need to.

3

I think the best option is to start using the Compose Key for these special characters.

You can set which key is the compose key using the KDE System Settings app. Choose Keyboard and the in the top-right Key Bindings. What you want to change is:

Screenshot_20250224_081916
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As you see I have set it to the Caps Lock key as I anyway do not use Caps Locks.

Now you can type:

  • <Caps Lock> + " + u for ü
  • <Caps Lock> + s + s for ß
  • <Caps Lock> + c + = for €
  • <Caps Lock> + 8 + 8 for ∞

Note that you just have to hit the Caps Lock key, not hold it.

See also Common compose combinations.

4

First of all thanks for your replies :).

@john_hudson That was what I was using before I found the international layouts, not really a fan of this anymore.

@marel Thanks, I already found that solution. I am currently using the compose key as a workaround, although not on the caps lock key.

So there is no actual solution to this problem? As I stated on other platforms (e. g. the kubuntu distro) the US international AltGr layout or the EurKey layout do deliver what I want. Specifically the EurKEY(US) layout has the folowwing shortcuts:

  • AltGr + u = ü → doesn’t work on openSUSE for some reason, leads to ŭ
  • AltGr + o = ö
  • AltGr + a = ä
  • AltGr + s = ß → doesn’t work on openSUSE for some reason, leads to ŝ

This really is close to a deal breaker for me, because I need these special characters on a daily basis and I need to access them quickly. The compose key works, but honestly I am not a huge fan of it.

5

Hmm, I just reset all my keyboard settings an re-added the EurKEY (US) layout in the KDE settings. For some reason ß and ü now work as I want them to using the AltGr. key, don’t ask me why.

6

That sounds like Esperanto layout (epo(qwerty) to be precise).

7

This could very well be, I experimented with settings because the quotes button " behaved unexpectedly with the US international layout. So it’s probably just user error, although I believe I unchecked every one of those keyboad settings. Thanks anyway :).