References to nonexistent keyboard layouts in xorg.xml

[Dan Damian]

Summary:

/etc/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.xml contains references to inexistent keyboard variants
(such as "ro_us", line 3461). I believe a quick fix would be to simply remove
these invalid references. This problem is not Ubuntu-specific, the problem
exists (silently) in Debian Sid, as XKB error dialogs were only added in GNOME 2.10.

Details:

When trying to select that layout using gnome-keyboard-properties, an error
message is displayed (this comes from gnome-settings-manager):

Error activating XKB configuration.
It can happen under various circumstances:
- a bug in libxklavier library
- a bug in X server (xkbcomp, xmodmap utilities)
- X server with incompatible libxkbfile implementation

X server version data:
The X.Org Foundation
60802000

If you report this situation as a bug, please include:
- The result of <b>xprop -root | grep XKB</b>
- The result of <b>gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd</b>

The results of those commands are:
$ xprop -root |grep XKB
_XKB_RULES_NAMES_BACKUP(STRING) = "xfree86", "pc104", "us", "", ""
_XKB_RULES_NAMES(STRING) = "xfree86", "pc104", "us", "", ""
$ gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd
 layouts = [us,ro ro_us]
 model = pc104
 overrideSettings = false
 options = [grp grp:alts_toggle]

Also, the following message is logged in /var/log/Xorg.0.log:
(EE) Error loading keymap /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/compiled/server-0.xkm

[Dan Damian (dand)]

I did some more digging... In /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/ro for some reason the
variant is called "us_ro" not "ro_us". Simply renaming either the symbol file or
the XML file solves the problem.

I've made a script that tries to load all layouts/variants in xorg.xml with
setxkbmap. Here's the list of invalid layouts/variants:

multi
multi multi-2gr
multi sundeadkeys
hr us
fo
fo nodeadkeys
hu sundeadkeys
ko
mk pc104
ro ro_us
nec/jp

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

It's something worthwhile I'll take up upstream, but not for Hoary.

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

Was anything done about this during Breezy?

[Dan Damian (dand)]

Since the move to xkeyboard-config things changed, however the Romanian keyboard
still doesn't work.

A patch was submitted and accepted in xkeyboard-config, but unfortunately no
releases were made since:
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=371

I don't have access to a breezy box right now, as the patch needs a minor
correction:
http://cvs.freedesktop.org/xlibs/xkbdesc/rules/base.xml.in?r1=1.81&r2=1.82

[Dan Damian (dand)]

Created an attachment (id=4403)
Patch that updates the Romanian layout to the current xkeyboard-config CVS.

I've attached a patch against xkeyboard-config 0.6.

I have to say that my previous statement about "Romanian keyboard still not
working" was not exactly correct. On a clean Breezy install, I noticed that the
Romanian "non-patched" layout _is_ functional, however it's an old/incomplete
version that doesn't reflect the official Romanian standard.

As a translator I could really use the updated version, but I can live with the
current state in Breezy, considering that we're only a week away from the
release. So altough it's not a perfect situation, there's definitely a progress
compared to Hoary.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

sorry, it's way, way too late in the game to do this for Breezy now. the entire
patch is littered with comments that make me incredibly uneasy (such as 'no-one
uses this but Linux people, so we're making it the default', which would really
ruin our day). we'll get it, for better or worse, when we take a newer xk-c for
dapper.

[Dan Damian (dand)]

Thanks for looking at it, we'll nail it in Dapper then :)

Regarding the comments, they might be a bit overdone, since we're following a
convention used by other languages too.