ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

Pepse · 2025-10-22 21:12:23

Hello everyone

So, last week i installed Arch Linux again (my beloved) after a year on Windows. In between this period i switched my USB ABNT2 keyboard to an NMB RT101, which is an PS/2 ANSI keyboard. On Windows, it worked perfectly, deadkeys and all, but on Arch, it just... refuses to work. I have tried everything i could, such as changing keyboard model and variant on x11 (pc104, altgr-intl), didn't work. I tried changing layout on GNOME's keyboard settings (English (USA) to (USA, Int, AltGr)), didn't work either. Trying to find a solution with a friend of mine, which is an linux expert (sort of), she said the problem was on GNOME, so i switched to Cinnamon and Plasma, the problem stayed. Combination keys solve the problem a little bit, but not only is it *PAINFUL* to use, some characters such as cedilla don't seem to exist. I don't know what to do anymore, the problem clearly isn't on my keyboard as it worked perfectly on Windows...

Thanks to anyone who helps

seth · 2025-10-22 21:39:02

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 2#p2268892

Gnome doesn't use X11 at all, the dead key behavior is locale driven, so

localectl; locale -a; locale

and whether keys are dead hinges on the keyboard layout/variant
US/intl has

    key <TLDE> { [dead_grave, dead_tilde,         grave,       asciitilde ] };
    key <AE02> { [	   2,         at,   twosuperior, dead_doubleacute ] };
    key <AE03> { [	   3, numbersign, threesuperior,      dead_macron ] };
    key <AE05> { [	   5,    percent,      EuroSign,     dead_cedilla ] };
    key <AE06> { [    6, dead_circumflex,    onequarter,      asciicircum ] };
    key <AE07> { [	   7,  ampersand,       onehalf,	dead_horn ] };
    key <AE08> { [	   8,   asterisk, threequarters,      dead_ogonek ] };
    key <AE09> { [	   9,  parenleft, leftsinglequotemark, dead_breve ] };
    key <AE10> { [	   0, parenright, rightsinglequotemark, dead_abovering ] };
    key <AE11> { [     minus, underscore,           yen,    dead_belowdot ] };
    key <AC11> { [dead_acute, dead_diaeresis, apostrophe,        quotedbl ] };
    key <AB02> { [	   x,          X, periodcentered,     dead_stroke ] };
    key <AB09> { [    period,    greater, dead_abovedot,       dead_caron ] };
    key <AB10> { [     slash,   question,  questiondown,        dead_hook ] };

Then the IM will kick in (try to use the cedilla one, see the links in the linked post)

In any event

ust... refuses to work. I have tried everything

Please don't paraphrase, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
What key combination (assuming this is a regular US QWERTY layout?) do you want to produce what input and what do you get instead?

Pepse · 2025-10-27 01:07:48

Sorry for taking so long to answer...

So, what comes with the commands provided is:

System Locale: LANG=pt_BR.UTF-8
    VC Keymap: us
   X11 Layout: us
    X11 Model: pc104+inet
  X11 Options: terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp
C
C.utf8
en_US.utf8
POSIX
pt_BR.utf8
LANG=pt_BR.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="pt_BR.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

About this:

What key combination (assuming this is a regular US QWERTY layout?) do you want to produce what input and what do you get instead?

I want to type letters like "á, ã, â, à", "ç" and numbers like "^3" (for some reason i can't send the number here). These letters become " 'a, ~a, ^a, `a", " 'c" and, well, ^3, respectively. Yes my keyboard is an US QWERTY one.

Please don't paraphrase

Sorry, as you can see in my profile, i am quite new to forums overall, didn't knew about this

One thing i observed on the links, is the "~/XCompose" file, it doesn't exist on my system. Oh, and both QT and GTK apps don't have functioning dead keys here.

seth · 2025-10-27 09:06:54

X11 Layout: us

sudo localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap us pc104 intl terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

Only the "intl" variant of the us layout has dead keys

Pepse · 2025-10-27 16:57:19

sudo localectl --no-convert set-x11-keymap us pc104 intl terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

Now the X11 variant is intl, but no deadkeys still. If that matters, i'm on Wayland.

Last edited by Pepse (2025-10-27 16:58:12)

seth · 2025-10-27 19:45:57

What "wayland" compositor specifically? Gnome, plasma, cinnamon…?
And as a sanity check: does it work as expected in an X11 session (and also what's the output of "setxkbmap -print -query" there?)

Arch Linux

#1 2025-10-22 21:12:23

ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

#2 2025-10-22 21:39:02

Re: ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

#3 2025-10-27 01:07:48

Re: ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

#4 2025-10-27 09:06:54

Re: ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

#5 2025-10-27 16:57:19

Re: ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

#6 2025-10-27 19:45:57

Re: ANSI keyboard with NO dead keys

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