Arch Linux

parthenopaios

Member

Registered: 2009-06-30

Posts: 10

xorg bug: max number of possible keyboard layouts

Dear forum,

yesterday I installed Archlinux for the very first time on my home notebook.  It was the first time for me that I saw KDE 4 running, too.  After short time I encountered my first problem with that.

It seems to be a bug in the Xorg protocol that limits the total of keyboard layouts to 4 (four).  This, however, used to be circumvented in KDE until version 3.5.10 to allow more layouts, but after they removed their hack (and with it the functionality) it's been reported several times as a bug.  The issue was even introduced to KDE4 as a feature by the kxkb maintainer so I don't expect any progress from this side soon.

So KDE4 was rendered basically useless for me as I need at least 6 different layouts.  I came here to the forums for help because I don't know yet (after one day) what would be the "arch way" of eliminating this so-called feature without breaking my package dependencies.  Two possibilities came in my mind:

1 Downgrade kxkb or whatever causes the problem to the last usable version.
2 Downgrade KDE to the last usable version (that would be 3.5.10).

Third possibility, as I'd like to use the machine for work, would be to install another distro that provides solution no 2.  I hesitate to do this because I picked arch for some reason and would like to become familiar with it.

Any help would be much appreciated; thanks in advance!

Philipp

EDIT: I thought of a fourth solution that could be any other WM or DE that doesn't restrict itself to Xorg's limits.

Last edited by parthenopaios (2009-06-30 16:08:51)

Liuuutas

Member

From: Cambridge

Registered: 2009-05-02

Posts: 71

Re: xorg bug: max number of possible keyboard layouts

Hi there,

Well if you need high customizability, check out FVWM (I'm using that), *box or awesome. These three are really for powerusers and thus their configuration may be more difficult, but you can do more with them...

In FVWM you can call any scripts you want via keystrokes (I believe in other mentioned WMs it is possible too). My Keboard Layout switching script is really lightwheight and it can store as many keyboard layouts as you want (at least it will cope with your 6 with no difficulties). It may work even in KDE, but you should then create a key binding.

Search in this forum for xkbswitch. There was a discussion before about it.

--
Ignas