Arch Linux

jlima

Member

Registered: 2019-07-29

Posts: 2

Problem setting keyboard layout with dead keys.

Dear all,

I'm using Arch (just installed) with the Deepin desktop environment. My laptop has a US keyboard but I want to type characters with diacritic marks. So I tried to install the US international keyboard with dead keys.
I tried the methods described in the ArchWiki

The output of localectl is

   System Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8
       VC Keymap: us-acentos
      X11 Layout: us
       X11 Model: pc105
     X11 Variant: intl

the Deepin starts with the correct mapping. However, once the laptop wakes from a suspend state, or the keymap is selected from the Deepin control panel, the dead keys are gone! Even though the keyboard map selected in the Deepin control panel is the "US, intl with dead keys"

By using "setxkbmap -layout us -variant intl" from the command line I can restore the keyboard map, but it is very annoying to constantly having to manually set the keyboard map.

I wonder if someone else faced this issue...  I have no idea where to look for the root cause, and no idea whether this is an issue with Deepin or Arch. Does anyone have any hints?

Thanks in advance.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 51,259

Re: Problem setting keyboard layout with dead keys.

The keyboard gets removed and readded with the S3 cycle. However you're configuring it right now does not handle that (ie. reapply the config w/ the resume from sleep)
Use https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xo … tion_files instead.

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jlima

Member

Registered: 2019-07-29

Posts: 2

Re: Problem setting keyboard layout with dead keys.

@seth: thanks for the suggestion. That gave me a direction to investigate. However, still no solution. I reach the point where I don't want to waste more time trying to solve the issue. I will share here my findings for whoever has enough knowledge and time to solve it.

[WHEN]
The issue manifests itself when the computer wakes from a sleep state.
I believe that restoring from hibernation doesn't cause the issue, but I'm not sure because I cannot reproduce that case since my computer laptop also stop offering me the option to hibernate :-(

[WITH]
The issue is not present with Gnome , Mate or Cinnamon desktops. Only with Deepin.
I don't know if the issue is present with other distributions other than Arch.

[WHAT]
The keyboard layout is changed when there was initially a "dead keys" variant set.
For example US, intl with dead keys becomes regular US (no dead keys) after wakeup from suspend
Keyboard layouts like the PT, which have dead keys by default, are not affected. Only the variant is lost.
It is also impossible to recover the keyboard from the Deepin settings panel:
Before sleep, choosing the keyboard layout from the Deepin settings brings the correct keyboard layout with the intl variant,
After wakeup from suspend, the keyboard layout from Deepin settings sets regular US keyboard without dead keys.
The only way to set correctly the keyboard is by,

setxkbmap -layout us -variant intl

However using the Deepin settings panel again will restore the regular US keyboard layout. Needless to say, the Deepin panel has the "US intl with dead keys" keyboard installed as before going to sleep.

The Deepin desktop looks great, but these issues, and more importantly, the realization that it's impossible for proficient computer user and programmer to pinpoint the cause of a simple problem and fix it in a reasonable amount of time, causes a lot of frustration and really puts me off.