Changing keyboard layout to Macintosh failed

[Gavin Panella]

 affects ubuntu

In a fresh installation of Hardy, fully up-to-date, with no previous
~/.* files, I cannot change to the correct keyboard layout. This means
that I can't type a hash, which can be important when programming :)

This follows a problem I had a few days ago where I pressed a key on the
keypad and the keyboard layout went completely wrong. Most of the keys
didn't work at all, and some of the letter keys were recognised as
numbers. Changing the keyboard layout did not help, nor did rebooting. I
deleted all the ~/.gconf* and ~/.gnome directories, then logged in
again, and that worked.

While the keyboard layout was completely b0rked, I did manage to run the
commands suggested in the error message, and they came out as pasted at
the end. This is the same as the more recent but less eventful layout
failure.

I'm using a one of the newish Apple keyboards, the thin ones, connected
by USB.

The error message:

> 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
> 10400090

$ xprop -root | grep XKB
_XKB_RULES_NAMES_BACKUP(STRING) = "xorg", "pc105", "gb", "mac", ""
_XKB_RULES_NAMES(STRING) = "xorg", "pc105", "gb", "mac", ""
$ gconftool-2 -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd
 layouts = []
 model = macintosh
 overrideSettings = true
 options = []

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Just to be sure, you didn't turn on NumLock, did you?

[Gavin Panella (allenap)]

Ha ha, I might have! Unfortunately there's no indication if it's set or not on these Apple keyboards. I did try pressing some likely looking buttons again to see if it made a difference.

In addition, I unplugged the keyboard and plugged it back in... but I don't know if num-lock state is preserved there. I also rebooted the machine, after which I was able to login at the gdm prompt. It was only when my session started that the kb map was wrong.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Not using an Apple keyboard, but I can confirm the error message. I cannot reproduce the keys-not-working behaviour though.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

 * Is this reproducible?
 * If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

 This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[Ricky Campbell (cyberdork33)]

It sounds like you turned numlock on which causes all kinds of problems. Hitting F6 a couple of times should reset it back to normal. I believe this is fixed in Intrepid Alpha 5, can you test it?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

We are closing this bug report as it lacks the information, described in the previous comments, we need to investigate the problem further. However, please reopen it if you can give us the missing information and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future.