[SOLVED] Separate Xorg configuration for different keyboards

Johnystar · 2022-11-09 12:40:28

I have 2 keyboards: an "Emi" keyboard and an "Elly" keyboard. Emi wants the cool angle-modded colemak DHm layout with some extra options, while Elly just wants regular qwerty.

Customised colemak layouts have been installed through the install-dreymar-xmod.sh script in the root of the GitHub DreymaR/BigBagKbdTrixXKB repo (link).

Here's the config at /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "emi-keyboard"
        MatchUSBID "0c45:7698"
        NoMatchUSBID "05ac:024f"
        Option "XkbLayout" "us,cz"
        Option "XkbModel" "pc104angle-z"
        Option "XkbVariant" "cmk_ed_us,cmk_ed_ks"
        Option "XkbOptions" "misc:extend,lv5:caps_switch_lock,grp:shifts_toggle,compose:menu,misc:cmk_curl_dh"
EndSection

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "elly-keyboard"
        MatchUSBID "05ac:024f"
        NoMatchUSBID "0c45:7698"
        Option "XkbLayout" "us,cz"
        Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
        Option "XkbVariant" ",qwerty"
        Option "XkbOptions" ""
EndSection

The problem

When Elly's keyboard is plugged in at boot, everything works as expected :

Applied rules from evdev:
rules:      evdev
model:      pc104
layout:     us
Trying to build keymap using the following components:
keycodes:   evdev+aliases(qwerty)
types:      complete
compat:     complete
symbols:    pc+us+inet(evdev)
geometry:   pc(pc104)

(output from setxkbmap -v 9)

qwertyuiop
asdfghjkl
zxcvbnm

(the layout visualised)

When I unplug Elly's keyboard and plug in Emi's keyboard, everything again works as expected :

Applied rules from evdev:
rules:      evdev
model:      pc104angle-z
layout:     us,cz
variant:    cmk_ed_us,cmk_ed_ks
options:    misc:extend,lv5:caps_switch_lock,grp:shifts_toggle,compose:menu,misc:cmk_curl_dh
Trying to build keymap using the following components:
keycodes:   evdev(pc104angle-z)+aliases(qwerty)
types:      complete
compat:     complete
symbols:    pc+us(cmk_ed_us)+cz(cmk_ed_ks):2+inet(evdev)+group(shifts_toggle)+compose(menu)+level5(caps_switch_lock)+extend(basic):1+colemak(cmk_ed_dh):1+extend(basic):2
geometry:   pc(pc104angle-z)

qwfpbjluy
arstgmneio
xcdvzkh

But then when I replug Elly's keyboard again :

Applied rules from evdev:
rules:      evdev
model:      pc104
layout:     us,cz
variant:    ,qwerty
options:    misc:extend,lv5:caps_switch_lock,grp:shifts_toggle,compose:menu,misc:cmk_curl_dh
Trying to build keymap using the following components:
keycodes:   evdev+aliases(qwerty)
types:      complete
compat:     complete
symbols:    pc+us+cz(qwerty):2+inet(evdev)+group(shifts_toggle)+compose(menu)+level5(caps_switch_lock)+extend(basic):1+colemak(cmk_ed_dh):1+extend(basic):2
geometry:   pc(pc104)

qwerbyuiop
asdfgmjkl
zxcdvnh

(qwerby instead of qwerty, t is missing entirely, ...)

Additional information

The problem seems to be, that Emi's layout options don't get reset when plugging in Elly's keyboard again. This happens even though

Option "XkbOptions" ""

is set in Elly's section. Weirder still, this can be fixed temporarily for the current X session by simply running:

setxkbmap -model pc104 -layout us -option

Note that the option argument is blank, much like in xorg.conf. The fact that this should work seems to even be confirmed on x.org's documentation page (link) (the way I understand it at least):

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "keyboard defaults"
    MatchIsKeyboard "on"

    Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
    Option "XkbLayout" "us"
    Option "XKbOptions" ""
EndSection
... The XkbOptions has been explicitly set to the empty set of parameters. ...

Is there something I'm doing wrong or is this a bug? How can I fix this?

Last edited by Johnystar (2022-11-09 17:30:50)

seth · 2022-11-09 13:38:12

You could work around it w/ a udev rule that runs "setxkbmap -display :0 -option"

Btw. what happens if you make it a single non-empty option like "compose:caps"?

Johnystar · 2022-11-09 17:30:24

Thanks for the suggestion, turns out setting it to

Option "XKbOptions" " "

instead of

Option "XKbOptions" ""

did the trick!

Marking as solved :D

Arch Linux

#1 2022-11-09 12:40:28