Bug(s) in keyboard handling?

[Peter Hutterer]

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 07:50:53PM +1000, Timothy S. Nelson wrote:
>  	Hi all.
> 
>  	One thing I just noticed is that the root window property for XKB only 
> contains the information for one keyboard.  When I run setxkbmap -print, the 
> device parameter doesn't make it read the settings for that device, it simply 
> relies on this property, which is presumably the most recent one set:
> 
> _XKB_RULES_NAMES(STRING) = "evdev", "pc105+inet", "ang,el", "", \
>  	"grp:switch,grp:scroll_toggle,grp_led:scroll"
> 
>  	Should that somehow represent multiple keyboards?

yes, it should. but can't at the same time. basically this property has been
around for long enough that we can't change it. for the multi-keyboard case we
should just introduce a new property. patches appreciated of course.

note that you will need to modify setxkbmap as well, xkbcomp already takes a
device parameter.

>  	The reason I originally started writing this message is because I have 
> two keyboards hooked to my computer.  One of them changes groups when it 
> probably shouldn't.  Here's my setup:
> 
> Keyboard 1: Standard.  Is this "us(basic)" or something?  I was hoping
>  	setxkbmap would tell me, but I guess not.

fwiw, rules evdev, model pc104, layout us are the defaults.

> Keyboard 2: ang,el as written above.  This is basically two groups, one for
>  	Anglo-Saxon (Fairly standard plus some extra, mostly Latin-1 stuff),
>  	and the other group for greek.
> 
>  	What happens is, when I write in Greek mode on my second keyboard, if 
> I press any key on my first keyboard, the second one switches to Anglo-Saxon. 
> The scroll lock LED doesn't change, though.  I was hoping that this keyboard 
> would be able to use LED-on to indicate Greek, and LED-off to indicate 
> Anglo-Saxon, but this doesn't seem to be happening.
> 
>  	Just as a test, I tried switching the Anglo-Saxon and the Greek 
> around.  This switched the results -- every time I type on the primary 
> keyboard, the secondary switches to Greek.  I'm assuming the bug is somehow 
> connected to setting the secondary keyboard to the same group as the first.
> 
>  	There seem also to be associated bugs when setting two maps on each 
> keyboard.  Changing the map on device 0 seems to change it for all keyboards, 
> so if I want to change this, I have to reset my secondary afterwards.

no, this shouldn't happen. to be sure though try it in a plain X session
without a desktop environment (they do the funniest things sometimes).
if it's still broken then, please file a bug and CC me on it.
Also please state there what server version you're running.
 
Cheers,
  Peter