Arch Linux

smolloy

Member

Registered: 2024-03-07

Posts: 11

Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

Starting today (after an upgrade of plasma -- not sure if this is the issue) I can no longer type the "~" character in certain applications.

It works with:

• xterm

• Firefox

• Chrome

• Notepad installed on a Windows VM (virtualbox)

Does *not* work with:

• Kate

• KWrite

• Alacritty or Konsole

• Libreoffice Writer

(I find it strange that it works with xterm but not alacritty or konsole.)

I am using a Swedish keyboard, and so typing this character requires the use of AltGr.

My question: Could someone advise on how to investigate this problem, and perhaps steps I could take to fix it?

System details:

OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Host: Latitude 5540
Kernel: 6.7.8-zen1-1-zen
Uptime: 57 mins
Packages: 1773 (pacman)
Shell: bash 5.2.26
Resolution: 1920x1200
DE: Plasma 6.0.1
WM: kwin
Theme: [Plasma], Breeze [GTK2/3]
Icons: [Plasma], breeze [GTK2/3]
Terminal: tmux
CPU: 13th Gen Intel i7-1355U (12) @ 5.000GHz
GPU: Intel Raptor Lake-P [UHD Graphics]
Memory: 11444MiB / 15678MiB

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,534

Re: Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

Seems plasma now defaults to wayland and I guess native wayland ./. xwayland is the issue here.
Does it still work in an explicit plasma/X11 session (and were you using that before)?

I am using a Swedish keyboard, and so typing this character requires the use of AltGr.

How do you configure that?
I suspect plasma/wayland will parse /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf but not necessarily other configs, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg/K … tion_files
And you can likely change the layout inside the session as well.

Do other AltGr-driven keys still work?
What happens when you enter ~ in an affected client (eg. in alacritty run "cat" and enter ~)?

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Rewrap8020

Member

Registered: 2024-03-07

Posts: 2

Re: Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

Hmm. For me (i was before and still am on wayland) on my german keyboard AltGr + '+' works to get a tilde.

smolloy

Member

Registered: 2024-03-07

Posts: 11

Re: Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

Does it still work in an explicit plasma/X11 session (and were you using that before)?

Very interesting.  I hadn't noticed that it had defaulted to plasma/Wayland after rebooting.  I'm now in plasma/X11 and the issue no longer appears.

Seems that the issue is somewhere in my wayland config.

Now that I have things working as desired, I wonder if it is worth the time to chase down the wayland issue.  Is plasma/X11 reaching end-of-life any time soon?

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 76,534

Re: Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

Probably not, but you might still want to figure how and where the keyboard config falls apart - I'd at least assume that the session-wise KDE config is coherent among display servers, so if you're configuring the layout using an xorg configlet, but not in the specific location, you might want to try that.

Whether or not you want to spend more time on this is of course your choice only.

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

smolloy

Member

Registered: 2024-03-07

Posts: 11

Re: Can no longer type the tilde (~) character in certain applications

I'll do a bit of digging and see where I get. Thanks for your help.