AltGr key doesn't work properly in gnome-terminal when Maori is in the keyboard selection list.

[Peter Belew]

I am running the 12.04 beta, 2012-04-12 daily, i386, from a DVD. I have 3 different keyboard layouts loaded in the keyboard layout selector: US, ES (LATAM), and Maori. With ES selected, and the AltGr key depressed, my top QWERTY row should look like this

   @ł€¶ŧ←↓→øþ

But if I do this in the gnome-terminal, I get

   �������������

If I then remove Maori from the list, and continue with the ES (LATAM) layout, I get the proper characters on the screen.

See bug #929054 for an earlier report on the xfce4-terminal in Xubuntu 12.04 beta, on the same amd64 machine.

This does not happen with the KDE terminal program in Kubuntu 12.04 beta. Also it does not happen in Debian 6 with a similar combination of keyboard layouts, including Maori. Debian has a somewhat different selection of layouts available, but it does have the ones I tested on this machine. Also it has a somewhat older version of gnome-terminal.

I filed this separate bug report to emphasise that this happens with gnome-terminal, and still happens as of today's build, with no problems arising from multiple updates to the installation on this computer.

Ubuntu version and kernel version
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu precise (development branch)"
Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 22:19:09 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3800+
cpu MHz : 1000.000

Also, this problem is a known bug - if you try to execute the error characters in the shell, command-not-found crashes:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ �������
Sorry, command-not-found has crashed! Please file a bug report at:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/command-not-found/+filebug
Please include the following information with the report:

command-not-found version: 0.2.44

This last problem has been reported many times already.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: gnome-terminal 3.4.0.1-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-23.36-generic-pae 3.2.14
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-23-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.314
Date: Thu Apr 12 17:33:29 2012
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta i386 (20120412)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

Note that if I install gnome-terminal (in addition to the default xfce4-terminal) under Xubuntu on the same system, it behaves the same way (also as of today's updates).

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

This problem may be useful in testing Bug #981182 regarding a command-not-found crash after entering the � characters.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

And also : this problem still occurs today.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

gnome-terminal was updated last night, but the problem persists.

Version information:

$ ls -l gnome-terminal
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 301480 Apr 16 21:53 gnome-terminal

$ apt-show-versions | grep gnome-term
gnome-terminal/precise uptodate 3.4.1.1-0ubuntu1
gnome-terminal-data/precise uptodate 3.4.1.1-0ubuntu1

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

Today I booted a beta2 version of 11.10 Oneiric on my Dell netbook, and checked keyboard behavior regarding this bug. I had the US and ES (Spanish) layouts installed, with and without the Maori layout in the list. The behavior was the same as with the 12.04 beta2 version installed in other systems: AltGr combinations produced an error character if the Maori character was in the list, when using gnome-terminal. The ES layout worked properly when the Maori layout was not in the list.

The same thing happens when using Linux Mint, which is based on 11.10 Oneiric.

Again, this did not affect GUI programs.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

11.10 beta2 used for testing Maori bug on netbook - in comment #6

Linux ubuntu 3.0.0-11-generic #18-Ubuntu SMP Tue Sep 13 23:29:47 UTC 2011 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=oneiric
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu oneiric (development branch)"
~

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I am now running the released version from a CD - I downloaded the ISO this evening.

ubuntu@ubuntu:/etc$ cat lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04 LTS"
ubuntu@ubuntu:/etc$ uname -a
Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-23-generic-pae #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 22:19:09 UTC 2012 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
ubuntu@ubuntu:/etc$ date
Fri Apr 27 06:08:01 UTC 2012

The same thing is still happening - first I add the Latin Americ (ES) layout to the default US (EN) layout - that works fine in Gnome-Terminal, but If I add the Maori (mi) layout, AltGr combinations in the ES layout turn into error characters.
When I type the top QWERTY line in using the ES layout, with the AltGr key held down, I see

  @ł€¶ŧ←↓→øþ

But if I type the same characters, with the AltGr key depressed, in the shell (using Gnome-terminal) I see instead the characters

   �������������

As described in the bug description.

If I select the Maori layout in gedit, and type the vowels with AltGr depressed, I see the vowels with macrons

  āēīōūĀĒĪŌŪ

but if I do that in Gnome terminal, I see

  ����������

So it is clear that Gnome-terminal is the problem.

[Peter Belew (peterbe)]

I just upgraded from 11.04 to 11.10 on another system, a gBox P4 computer.

Ubuntu version and kernel version
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=11.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=oneiric
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 11.10"
Linux billy 3.0.0-17-generic #30-Ubuntu SMP Thu Mar 8 17:34:21 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
model name : Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 1.70GHz
cpu MHz : 1692.048
MemTotal: 2029944 kB
SwapTotal: 522076 kB

I reproduced this bug on this system.
$ apt-show-versions gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal/oneiric uptodate 3.0.1-0ubuntu3

I am about to upgrade this system to 12.04.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to review all reported bugs in a timely manner.

Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) reached end-of-life on April 28, 2017.

Do you still see a problem related to the one that you reported in a currently supported version of Ubuntu? Please let us know if you do and in which version otherwise this report can be left to expire in approximately 60 days time.

Thank you for helping make Ubuntu better.

Paul White
[Ubuntu Bug Squad]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-terminal (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]