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

[Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>]

Marc Haber wrote:
>
> 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
>

I think you want xkbcomp instead of setxkbmap.  'xkbcomp .xkbmap :0'
using your .xkbmap file seems to work.

Cheers,
Julien