Bug#564805: /usr/bin/xkbcomp: cannot write to :0.0

[Oleg Katsitadze <olegkat@gmail.com>]

Package: x11-xkb-utils
Version: 7.5+1
File: /usr/bin/xkbcomp
Justification: renders package unusable
Severity: grave

*** Please type your report below this line ***

I've just upgraded my system.  I can no longer switch layouts in X.  I
have

    Option      "XkbLayout" "us(dvorak),us,ru(common)"

in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf, which was working beautifully before the
upgrade.

Running xkbsel results in:

    $ xkbsel us
    Error:            success in unknown
                      Couldn't write keyboard description to :0.0
    /usr/bin/xkbcomp exited abnormally: 256

Here's the debug output:

    $ xkbsel --debug us
    Parsing locale name en_US.UTF-8
    Reading configuration from /etc/xkbsel/xkbsel.conf

    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         cs
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "cssk(cs)" 

    Adding into maps: 0: cs cssk(cs)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         cs_y
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "cssk(cs_qwerty)" 

    Adding into maps: 1: cs_y cssk(cs_qwerty)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         sk
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "cssk(sk)" 

    Adding into maps: 2: sk cssk(sk)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         sk_y
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "cssk(sk_qwerty)" 

    Adding into maps: 3: sk_y cssk(sk_qwerty)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         us
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "xfree86(us)" 

    Adding into maps: 4: us xfree86(us)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      shortcut
    Name:         dvorak
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "xfree86(dvorak)" 

    Adding into maps: 5: dvorak xfree86(dvorak)
    Read configuration line:
    Section:      mapset
    Name:         map
    Qualifier:    cs
    Values:       "us" "cs" "sk_y" "sk" 

    Read configuration line:
    Section:      mapset
    Name:         map
    Qualifier:    sk
    Values:       "us" "sk_y" "sk" "cs" 

    Read configuration line:
    Section:      mapset
    Name:         map
    Qualifier:    
    Values:       "us" "sk" "sk_y" "cs" "cs_y" "dvorak" 

    Adding into maps: 0: us xfree86(us)
    Adding into maps: 1: sk cssk(sk)
    Adding into maps: 2: sk_y cssk(sk_qwerty)
    Adding into maps: 3: cs cssk(cs)
    Adding into maps: 4: cs_y cssk(cs_qwerty)
    Adding into maps: 5: dvorak xfree86(dvorak)
    Running /usr/bin/xkbcomp -o ':0.0' '/var/lib/xkbsel/compiled/xfree86/us.xkm'
    Error:            success in unknown
                      Couldn't write keyboard description to :0.0
    /usr/bin/xkbcomp exited abnormally: 256


Running the failing command from a shell is no different:

    $ /usr/bin/xkbcomp -o ':0.0' '/var/lib/xkbsel/compiled/xfree86/us.xkm'
    Error:            success in unknown
                      Couldn't write keyboard description to :0.0

However, the following commands work and do switch the keyboard
layout:

    $ setxkbmap us
    $ setxkbmap us -print | xkbcomp - $DISPLAY


-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-trunk-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US.UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages x11-xkb-utils depends on:
ii  cpp                           4:4.4.2-3  The GNU C preprocessor (cpp)
ii  libc6                         2.10.2-5   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.3.2-1  X11 client-side library
ii  libxaw7                       2:1.0.7-1  X11 Athena Widget library
ii  libxkbfile1                   1:1.0.6-1  X11 keyboard file manipulation lib
ii  libxmu6                       2:1.0.5-1  X11 miscellaneous utility library
ii  libxt6                        1:1.0.7-1  X11 toolkit intrinsics library
ii  x11-common                    1:7.5+1    X Window System (X.Org) infrastruc

x11-xkb-utils recommends no packages.

x11-xkb-utils suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information