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Manu
Asked: 2013-08-06 07:02:19 +0800 CST

How do I change the login manager's keyboard layout?

  • 772

I have a netbook with an AZERTY layout. I've changed it to "bépo" to try it, but now I've reset it to a french layout.

While all the apps have taken the change into account, Ubuntu's login manager still uses bépo, making entering passwords a challenge. I've enabled the virtual keyboard for the time being so that I could login again.

I don't remember what I had done in the first place to switch the login screen to bépo, but now I can't switch it back.

enter image description here

EDIT : In the keyboard settings page, if I click "use system defaults", then everything is in bépo ! Where is this different keyboard layout set ?

ANOTHER EDIT : Here's what did not work :

  1. Changing the layout in settings
  2. using the "use system defaults" checkbox in settings
  3. sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
  4. changing it in Xconf
  5. adding a line in /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
  6. sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
  7. slaming head against desk
  8. dpkg-reconfigure lightdm
  9. sudo gsettings set org.gnome.libgnomekbd.keyboard layouts "['fr']"
  10. combinations of the above

enter image description here

Is it possible to relaunch the keyboard configuration tool that's in ubuntu's setup ? The thing has automatic layout detection and it changes the setting everywhere.

13.04

5 Answers

  1. What did seem to work for me was this suggestion: change /etc/default/keyboard.

    Banging head on desk indeed, this is ridiculous.

    • 11

  2. From terminal, run the following command to set the language layouts (you can set maximum four layouts) for your lightdm login screen:

    gsettings set org.gnome.libgnomekbd.keyboard layouts "['us\taltgr-intl', 'fr']"

    With the above command you set English (International) and French layouts, but you can change them as you wish.

    To see the current layouts, you can use: 

    gsettings get org.gnome.libgnomekbd.keyboard layouts

    Now, you should be able to use the keyboard icon from the top-right of your screen:

    keyboard icon

    Next is a screen capture from my login screen (I used gsettings set org.gnome.libgnomekbd.keyboard layouts "['us\taltgr-intl', 'gr', 'ro']" in terminal). As you can see, I can change the language layout as I wish:

    login screen

    • 5
  3. Best Answer

    Must have been a weird lightdm bug.

    Lightdm got the new keyboard layout once I changed the login manager to gdm, then back to lightdm, even though simply doing dpkg-reconfigure lightdm did nothing.

    So here it is :

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gdm

    (set gdm as the login manager when asked)

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

    (set it as the login manager when asked)

    sudo apt-get remove gdm

    Then, restart.

    Changing a keyboard layout in linux is serious business.

    • 5

  4. What helped me was to enter shell alt+ctrl+f1 and close lightdm 

    sudo service lightdm stop

    then 

    dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

    and

    sudo service keyboard-setup restart

    I ran those commands as user and as root, then when I started lightdm 

    sudo service lightdm start

    the keyboard was fixed.

    • 3

  5. Make a short-key in System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Options under "key(s) to change layout" to switch layouts.

    You can see detailed answer here Keyboard shortcut for Lockscreen not working

    • 0