Comment 4 for bug 986322

This is a selected excerpt taken from a related bug reported by moi. I intended to copy pertinent info over but must have never gotten it. I'd also hoped that it was noticed and taken care upstream but seeing now that 12.10 still has issues with changing layouts, here it is.

1) Changing the layout in unity's "applet" does not change it in X. /etc/default/keyboard shows the following, even if layouts are repositioned in Keyboard Layout in System Settings.

XKBMODEL="pc104"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT="intl"
XKBOPTIONS="terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"

2) lightdm takes to the change, at least if it's done via Keyboard Layout.

3) X doesn't take to the change even if it's done via Keyboard Layout.

Clearly there is a conflict between /etc/default/keyboard and Keyboard Layout. I would assume a workaround to be to run the following:

1. sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
2. and then to edit /etc/default/keyboard to coincide with the input into the previous routine (pkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration)

See http://krisreeves.com/things-that-should-be-easy/permanently-change-keyboard-layout-on-ubuntu-server-11-10/

There are various manifestations of this bug:

1) The issue of not being able to change a layout within a session from the Unity "applet", /etc/default/keyboard not keeping sync with the unity indicator.

2) And the issue of /etc/default/keyboard not keeping in sync with selections taken in Keyboard Layout, which explains why desktop sessions (X) revert to previous settings.

/etc/default/keyboard seems to want to do it's own thing, regardless of what other utilities want.

3) There are also the issues of any layout chosen from dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration not sticking, /etc/default/keyboard not keeping sync with dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration.