Bug#472608: /usr/bin/setxkbmap: "Error loading new keyboard description"

[Brice Goglin <Brice.Goglin@ens-lyon.org>]

Marc Haber wrote:
> Package: x11-xkb-utils
> Version: 7.3+1
> Severity: normal
> File: /usr/bin/setxkbmap
>
> My X has the habit of losing its keyboard modifiers while working on
> X. This used to be fixed by invoking setxkbmap .xkbmap with the
> following .xkbmap file:
>
> $ cat .xkbmap
> xkb_keymap {
>         xkb_keycodes  { include "xfree86+aliases(qwertz)"       };
>         xkb_types     { include "complete"      };
>         xkb_compat    { include "complete"      };
>         xkb_symbols   { include "pc+de+compose(rwin)"   };
>         xkb_geometry  { include "pc(pc104)"     };
> };
> $ 
>
> This has stopped working recently:
>
> $ setxkbmap .xkbmap
> Error loading new keyboard description
>
> Stracing setxkbmap shows that the code is trying to read from
> /tmp/.X11-unix/X0, gets EAGAIN and bombs out.
>
> Any hints will be appreciated.
>
> Greetings
> Marc
>   

There were some problems in Xserver 1.4 in the way xkb layout changes
were managed. Can you try again with the latest xserver-xorg-core from
unstable?

Brice