Arch Linux

elegua

Member

Registered: 2008-03-28

Posts: 19

Hotplugging Keyboard Layout Switching Problem

With a recent update, my keyboard configuration got a bit hosed. The super key stopped working, I couldn't use shifts to swap keyboard layouts, and ctrl/caps swap reverted back. Instead of troubleshooting that, I decided to give hotplugging a try. I disabled the keyboard configuration in xong.conf and enabled hotplugging.

Everything is working fine with one exception. If I list more than one keyboard layout in the .fdi, the keyboard reverts back to 'us'. As far as I can tell (and other posts have verified this) this is pretty close to copy/paste from xorg.conf. If I use just a single layout, that layout works.

Any advice?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keymap">
      <append key="info.callouts.add" type="strlist">hal-setup-keymap</append>
    </match>

    <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
      <merge key="input.xkb.rules" type="string">base</merge>

      <!-- If we're using Linux, we use evdev by default (falling back to
           keyboard otherwise). -->
      <merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">keyboard</merge>
      <match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name"
             string="Linux">
        <merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">evdev</merge>
      </match>

      <merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">dvorak,us</merge>
      <merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string" />
      <merge key="input.xkb.options" type="string">grp:shifts_toggle,ctrl:swapcaps</merge>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

Last edited by elegua (2009-02-14 15:20:28)

rocknice

Member

Registered: 2005-04-01

Posts: 10

Re: Hotplugging Keyboard Layout Switching Problem

wow, i didn't realize that that many people besides myself use dvorak. anyways, looks like another bug in the hotplugging upgrade, i can't get hal and evdev to work together to switch layouts anymore, it worked just until the evdev and hal upgrades. my keyboard defaulted to the us layout. the temporary fix for me was to kill the hal process and set up the layout in xorg.conf while we try to fix it. apparently even if you specify the dvorak layout in the xorg.conf file but don't kill hal, hal fights with x to take control over the keyboard and set it to the standard us layout.

elegua

Member

Registered: 2008-03-28

Posts: 19

Re: Hotplugging Keyboard Layout Switching Problem

Of course I get it figured out a little bit after asking.

It seems that the update killed the ability to use dvorak layout with anything else in setxkbmap. The following works for me now.

<merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">us,us</merge>
<merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">dvorak,basic</merge>

allbluedream

Member

Registered: 2008-04-06

Posts: 155

Re: Hotplugging Keyboard Layout Switching Problem

Thanks. Finally got my keyboard to work again. But the gnome keyboard indicator is now useless.

Llama

Banned

From: St.-Petersburg, Russia

Registered: 2008-03-03

Posts: 1,379

Re: Hotplugging Keyboard Layout Switching Problem

Of course I get it figured out a little bit after asking.

It seems that the update killed the ability to use dvorak layout with anything else in setxkbmap. The following works for me now.

<merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">us,us</merge>
<merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">dvorak,basic</merge>

elegua, where did you ask your questions? I've got a very similar problem, tried this (pure guesswork):

<merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">us,ru</merge>
<merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">basic,winkeys</merge>

But it won't wash ...