Re: keyboard configuration problem

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Sun 22 Dec 2013 at 18:41:11 +0100, Pierre Frenkiel wrote:

> The problem is that the actual layout is still "us", in the login
> greeting window as well as in xterm. I must then run, at each session start,
>    setxkbmap -layout gb (that works)
> as the layout reverts to us when I logout
> 
> Can this be considered as a kernel bug?

X (whether started with a login manager or startx) gets information about
the keyboard from udev via evdev. 

What does my machine think XKBLAYOUT is?

  desktop:/home/brian# udevadm info --export-db | grep XKB
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=gb
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch

Now we will alter /etc/default/keyboard to have

  XKBLAYOUT="es"

and rerun the previous command.

We find we get the same output as previously. Which is not surprising
because udev is in the dark about the file change we have made. So we
will inform it and check

  desktop:/home/brian# udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change
  desktop:/home/brian# udevadm info --export-db | grep XKB
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch
  E: XKBLAYOUT=es
  E: XKBMODEL=pc105
  E: XKBOPTIONS=lv3:ralt_switch