Tilde/macron is no longer a dead key on German keyboard

[Michael von Glasow]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Enable the German keyboard layout.
2. Open a text editor of your choice.
3. Press AltGr and + (second key after P), then press a.
4. Press AltGr + Shift and +, then press a.

Expected behavior:

Key acts as a dead key, the key sequences produce ã and ā, respectively.

Actual behavior:

Key acts as a regular key, the key sequences produce ~a and ¯a, respectively. This breaks the ability to easily input diacritics for several languages (including Portuguese, Spanish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian).

Additional information:

Both keystrokes acted as dead keys in Ubuntu 16.04. I doubt removing the dead key functionality was intentional: While I do understand that some people might need the tilde key frequently but hardly ever need a tilde accent, I cannot think of many situations in which one would require a bare macron. Plus, for situations in which dead keys are undesirable, there is also a “nodeadkeys” variant of the German layout, which has been around for some time.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: xkb-data 2.23.1-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Wed May 2 16:16:00 2018
Dependencies:

DistUpgraded: 2018-05-01 00:48:55,072 DEBUG Running PostInstallScript: './xorg_fix_proprietary.py'
DistroCodename: bionic
DistroVariant: ubuntu
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-01-29 (824 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-MATE 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Release amd64 (20151021)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 80ee:0021 VirtualBox USB Tablet
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: innotek GmbH VirtualBox
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-20-generic root=UUID=a1cb66fa-2942-48a4-b7d8-13881405227a ro quiet splash
SourcePackage: xkeyboard-config
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-04-30 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 12/01/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: innotek GmbH
dmi.bios.version: VirtualBox
dmi.board.name: VirtualBox
dmi.board.vendor: Oracle Corporation
dmi.board.version: 1.2
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: Oracle Corporation
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvninnotekGmbH:bvrVirtualBox:bd12/01/2006:svninnotekGmbH:pnVirtualBox:pvr1.2:rvnOracleCorporation:rnVirtualBox:rvr1.2:cvnOracleCorporation:ct1:cvr:
dmi.product.family: Virtual Machine
dmi.product.name: VirtualBox
dmi.product.version: 1.2
dmi.sys.vendor: innotek GmbH
version.compiz: compiz 1:0.9.13.1+18.04.20180302-0ubuntu1
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.0~rc5-1ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.0~rc5-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.5-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:18.0.1-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20171229-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Thanks for your report.

It seems to be an intentional upstream change of the basic German layout:

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xkeyboard-config/commit/symbols/de?id=49129c63

So it's not a bug.

The good news is that the "German (dead tilde)" layout variant provides the behavior you prefer.