Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Over the weekend, I upgraded a sacrificial copy of my current 'lenny'
to 'squeeze' and ran into a rather odd keyboard issue:

Specifically, the Down and PgDown keys were no longer working.

I ran xev and saw that they were respectively mapped to Super_R and
Compose although I don't remember the upgrade procedure prompting me at
any point to specify anything relative to keyboard configuration.

Google search popped up a couple of threads where other users had run
into similar problems, indicating that the culprit might be something
called 'evdev' and that the following command might fix the issue:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
$ setxkbmap -rules evdev
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Another poster recommended building an xorg.conf file that would cause
the X server to revert to the old 'non-evdev' behavior:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (X Window System server configuration file)

Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "off"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "False"
Option "AllowEmptyInput" "False"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc104"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
EndSection
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Indeed, both workarounds appear to fix the problem for now, but all the
same, they have left me a little frustrated.

Could someone knowledgeable comment on this and explain what's going on?

Thanks,

CJ


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 00:14:02 -0500, Chris Jones wrote:
> Over the weekend, I upgraded a sacrificial copy of my current 'lenny'
> to 'squeeze' and ran into a rather odd keyboard issue:
>
> Specifically, the Down and PgDown keys were no longer working.

[...]

> Could someone knowledgeable comment on this and explain what's going on?

http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/InputHotplugGuide

--
Regards, |
Florian |


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 03:02:56AM EST, Florian Kulzer wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 00:14:02 -0500, Chris Jones wrote:

> > Over the weekend, I upgraded a sacrificial copy of my current 'lenny'
> > to 'squeeze' and ran into a rather odd keyboard issue:
> >
> > Specifically, the Down and PgDown keys were no longer working.
>
> [...]
>
> > Could someone knowledgeable comment on this and explain what's going on?
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/InputHotplugGuide

Cool..!

CJ


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Florian Kulzer <florian.kulzer+debian@icfo.es> writes:

> On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 00:14:02 -0500, Chris Jones wrote:
>> Over the weekend, I upgraded a sacrificial copy of my current 'lenny'
>> to 'squeeze' and ran into a rather odd keyboard issue:
>>
>> Specifically, the Down and PgDown keys were no longer working.
>
> [...]
>
>> Could someone knowledgeable comment on this and explain what's going on?
>
> http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/InputHotplugGuide

Sorry to just butt in here, but after quickly reading most of the
document there, I'm wondering how certain kinds of settings that I've
made in Xorg.conf or its predecessors, for years, will fair in this
emerging new way of doing things.

One setting I've learned to really like and rely on by now, is
something most people would probably find annoying as heck. It looks
like this in xorg.conf

Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1280x1024" #"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
Virtual 2048 1536
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubsection

The part I'm concerned with is the `Virtual' setting, which allows me
to have a massive sized desktop to flop around on.

I like having that room to pan around on, and it serves to also keep
people off my machines... hehe.

I'd really hate to lose that big virtual desktop, and am assuming it
could still be setup somehow.

Currently it still works to have it in an xorg.conf. But if I'm
understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that one
be handled in that case.


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Harry Putnam:
>
> understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
> setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that one
> be handled in that case.

I don't think the X.org people intend to ignore existing configuration
files in the future. It's just that many or even most things belong
somewhere else and/or can be autodetected. That gives you the
possibility to have a minimal xorg.conf which contains just the options
you want to supersede.

J.
--
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[Agree] [Disagree]
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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Jochen Schulz <ml@well-adjusted.de> writes:

> Harry Putnam:
>>
>> understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
>> setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that one
>> be handled in that case.
>
> I don't think the X.org people intend to ignore existing configuration
> files in the future. It's just that many or even most things belong
> somewhere else and/or can be autodetected. That gives you the
> possibility to have a minimal xorg.conf which contains just the options
> you want to supersede.

So you don't think personal settings will migrate to something or
somewhere else? Or possibly be in different syntax.

Like happened to the OP here, where to go back to Ctrl-Alt-bkspc to
leave X, requires a fairly lengthy piece of xml code.


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 01:08:19PM EST, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Jochen Schulz <ml@well-adjusted.de> writes:

> > Harry Putnam:
> >>
> >> understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
> >> setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that
> >> one be handled in that case.

> > I don't think the X.org people intend to ignore existing
> > configuration files in the future. It's just that many or even most
> > things belong somewhere else and/or can be autodetected. That gives
> > you the possibility to have a minimal xorg.conf which contains just
> > the options you want to supersede.
>
> So you don't think personal settings will migrate to something or
> somewhere else? Or possibly be in different syntax.
>
> Like happened to the OP here, where to go back to Ctrl-Alt-bkspc to
> leave X, requires a fairly lengthy piece of xml code.

Hmm.. for the record, the 'Option "DontZap" "off"' entry is not
relevant to my problem. Just happened to already have this in my
xorg.conf before I ran into this problem.

CJ


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Chris Jones wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 09, 2009 at 01:08:19PM EST, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> Jochen Schulz <ml@well-adjusted.de> writes:
>
>>> Harry Putnam:
>>>> understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
>>>> setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that
>>>> one be handled in that case.
>
>>> I don't think the X.org people intend to ignore existing
>>> configuration files in the future. It's just that many or even most
>>> things belong somewhere else and/or can be autodetected. That gives
>>> you the possibility to have a minimal xorg.conf which contains just
>>> the options you want to supersede.
>> So you don't think personal settings will migrate to something or
>> somewhere else? Or possibly be in different syntax.
>>
>> Like happened to the OP here, where to go back to Ctrl-Alt-bkspc to
>> leave X, requires a fairly lengthy piece of xml code.
>
> Hmm.. for the record, the 'Option "DontZap" "off"' entry is not
> relevant to my problem. Just happened to already have this in my
> xorg.conf before I ran into this problem.
>
> CJ
>
>

Hi,
I just have "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp" in the XKBOPTIONS section of
/etc/default/console-data, and I can kill X with the three fingers
keystroke of doom. I just killed my session to make sure it was working
;-) .
That's on Squeeze.


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Broken keyboard layout after lenny/squeeze upgrade.
 

Harry Putnam:
> Jochen Schulz <ml@well-adjusted.de> writes:
>> Harry Putnam:
>>>
>>> understanding that document right, the idea is to move away from
>>> setting up X with an xorg.conf. So how would settings like that one
>>> be handled in that case.
>>
>> I don't think the X.org people intend to ignore existing configuration
>> files in the future. It's just that many or even most things belong
>> somewhere else and/or can be autodetected. That gives you the
>> possibility to have a minimal xorg.conf which contains just the options
>> you want to supersede.
>
> So you don't think personal settings will migrate to something or
> somewhere else? Or possibly be in different syntax.

Sure, "some" things may move "somewhere" else (as has already happened).
But I don't expect many more changes in the near future and I don't
expect the specific settings the OP uses to change. But that's just a
guess, of course.

J.
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