GDM does not inherit XKB settings from Debian installer (was Re: [xkb] Re: Eliminating language-based layouts)

[Denis Barbier <barbier@linuxfr.org>]

On Thu, Aug 04, 2005 at 10:09:37PM +0200, Baurzhan Ismagulov wrote:
> Hello Denis,
> 
> [moving this to debian-boot]

[Removing XKB mailing-list, and changing title]

Some background for debian-boot: on XKB mailing list, Baurzhan
Ismagulov complained that distros (including Debian) do not let
user select keyboard variants, which may be very impractical,
e.g. for Turkish people because there are 2 different layouts,
and unexperienced users may be unable to log in because they
do not know that the password they type is wrong.
They experience similar problems with all distros, and I replied
that to my knowledge Debian installer proposes these alternatives.

> On Thu, Aug 04, 2005 at 09:38:25PM +0200, Denis Barbier wrote:
> > > The problem is, the default sarge installation does not ask about the X
> > > layout and silently assigns "us", making it impossible to login in gdm.
> > 
> > In the Debian installer, the localization-config package provides a mapping
> > between console and X keyboard maps, which looks like (this is a Perl hash):
> > 
> >     'Turkish (Q layout)' => { XkbLayout => 'tr', XkbOptions => 'caps:shift', XkbModel => 'pc105' },
> >     'Turkish (F layout)' => { XkbLayout => 'tr', XkbVariant => 'tr_f', XkbOptions => 'caps:shift', XkbModel => 'pc105' },
> > 
> > Thus X should have the right settings, the problem being that gdm does
> > not use them by default.
> 
> Hmm, I don't understand what "gdm does not use them" means.

Your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file should have the right settings, but
as your keyboard layout is wrong when gdm is launched, it means that
gdm has its own settings.

> Is it resetting the mapping to its internal layout? I.e., gnome has
> its own layouts noted somewhere, X starts with the value from
> XF86Config-4, and gnome does something like setxkbmap -layout xx?

Yes, at least this is my understanding of the situation.

> Whatever the mechanism is, I experienced the following:
> 
> * I've chosen Turkish F during the installation.
> 
> * The console was Turkish F without problems.
> 
> * Keyboard layout in gdm was us, not Turkish F.
> 
> * Keyboard layout in gnome session was us, not Turkish F.
> 
> I also started Paw -> Settings -> Keyboard (don't remember the exact
> names, it was in Turkish). There was one layout listed there, and it was
> us, not Turkish F. After I added Turkish F, I could switch to it via
> RAlt+LAlt. I couldn't switch back to us, probably because RAlt is AltGr
> in Turkish F layout. I couldn't find a gnome dialog to set another key
> combination for switching the layouts.

Thanks for these detailed explanations.

> So, it seems to be several problems:
> 
> * X doesn't inherit tr_f from the installer.

Can you please check your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file?

> * gnome doesn't inherit tr_f from the installer.

Yes, this seems to be the root of the problem.
This bugreport is currently assigned to localization-config, so
maybe Konstantinos can tell whether he is willing to preseed gdm
settings.

> * I need to learn how to set up layout switch in gnome since I use a us
>   keyboard and can't type Turkish F blindly. What is that "caps:shift"
>   thingy? I'll try it tomorrow.

This means that Caps Lock acts as a locked Shift key; this makes a
difference on the upper row (the one with digits), but I do not know
why it is set.  I just discover that there is a debian-l10n-turkish
mailing list, you should be able to find there the people who worked
on those Turkish settings (though this list is dedicated to translating
Debian into Turkish).

Denis