keyboard layout settings must be consistent between gnome-control-center keyboard, indicator-keyboard and gnome-tweak-tool and /etc/default/keyboard

[Norbert]

Dear Ubuntu developers.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will be released very soon. It seems that it will be based on GNOME 3.8 or 3.10 (you know exact version).

It seems that because of modern GNOME Ubuntu users will have very reduced set of keyboard layout options.

Previous Ubuntu LTS version (12.04) was based on GNOME 3.4 and have very wide spectrum of keyboard layout options. But in newer GNOME versions, on which for example, Ubuntu 13.10 is based, this options are very limited.

Many options are moved from gnome-control-center keyboard to gnome-tweak-tool (see bug 1245064).

I have suggested already to include gnome-tweak-tool in default Ubuntu 14.04 installation (see bug 1270572).

But for now it seems that settings between gnome-tweak-tool, gnome-control-center and indicator-keyboard are not consistent.
For example, if I set
"Use keyboard LED to show alternative layout" to "Scroll Lock"
on Typing section of gnome-tweak-tool the Scroll Lock does not indicate alternative keyboard layout as expected (it is a bug).

So please, keep settings between gnome-tweak-tool, gnome-control-center and indicator-keyboard consistent.

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For other layout switching problems introduced in Ubuntu 13.10 you can see bug 1218322.
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ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: indicator-keyboard 0.0.0+14.04.20131125-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-4.19-generic 3.13.0-rc8
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-4-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.13.1-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sun Jan 19 16:55:42 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-20 (90 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.10 "Saucy Salamander" - Release i386 (20131016.1)
SourcePackage: indicator-keyboard
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2013-11-19 (61 days ago)

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Tested Scroll Lock LED behaviour on Ubuntu 13.10 - same result. I have set it from gnome-tweak-tool, but it does not light up on alternative layout.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Today I did clean install of Ubuntu 14.04.

During install I selected Russian keyboard layout, layouts were switched in installer by Alt+Shift,
on system boot layout switching was quietly set to Super+Space and Shift+Super+Space (this combinations do not work in any session). Then I set Alt+Shift in Unity session - it worked, but if I start GNOME FlashBack session (with Metacity) indicator-keyboard do not react to Alt+Shift but Scroll Lock correctly reports selected layout.
I understand that Scroll Lock is hardcoded in /etc/default/keyboard {
}
but why all these options do not work together, why they are not consistent?
Sometimes I use Unity, sometimes I use GNOME and I expect that settings are system-wide, but they do not.

Guys these news are bad news.
I'm ready to help Ubuntu community to win in the battle at Keyboard Layout Switching as tried to do before (during elimination of #1218322)

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

I got the same results today with Ubuntu 14.04 final beta (4cf9e5ef2c1c362317c90312c76cfda0 *ubuntu-14.04-beta2-desktop-i386.iso).

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Made a clean install of Ubuntu 14.04 from final (!!) iso image. The bug is still here.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exists in Ubuntu 14.10 (installed from Ubuntu 14.10 _Utopic Unicorn_ - Alpha i386 (20140902)).

unity-control-center keyboard indicates that Super+Space and Shift+Super+Space are used for layout switching,
/etc/default/keyboard contains:

XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us,ru"
XKBVARIANT=","
XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"

and Alt+Shift switches layouts in terminals (for example Ctrl+Alt+F1) but does not work in Xorg (for example in Unity session).

So the bug is still here. Please fix it on next install media. It may confuse Ubuntu newbies. Please fix it before 14.10 final release.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

It's great that Ubuntu 14.10 MATE beta is not affected by this bug.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Reinstalled Utopic from official beta2 , the bug is still here (see comment 9).

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Reinstalled Ubuntu Utopic 14.10 from official final ISO , the bug is still here (see comment 9).

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exists in Ubuntu 15.04 alpha2.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exists in Ubuntu 15.04 beta2.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exists in Ubuntu 15.04 final.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exist in Ubuntu 15.10 alpha.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exist in Ubuntu 15.10 beta2.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Bug exist in Ubuntu 15.10 final.

[Norbert (nrbrtx)]

Todays Bionic daily build (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/bionic-desktop-amd64.iso) sets <Alt+Shift> in /etc/default/keyboard.