Bug#815154: gnome-control-center removes XKBMODEL and XKBOPTIONS from /etc/default/keyboard

[Anton Zinoviev]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2016 at 11:38:59PM +0100, Andreas Henriksson wrote:
> 
> Anyway, this is getting pretty meta-discussion like here so we should probably 
> just say that it's good that we both know we have different views on a couple 
> of things here.

As far as I can see, the only difference is that you were talking about a 
configuration file which is maintained by (a specific) software and I was talking 
about a configuration file maintained by a human.
 
> > This is a configuration text file maintained manually by the system
> > administrator.
> 
> (Except manual labour is becoming less and less common. After all we use
> computers to automate things.)

This is irrelevant.  The file /etc/default/keyboard is a file maintained by a 
human by definition. :) Any program modifying it has to do this with care as 
described in

http://man.cx/debconf-devel%287%29#heading14

> All I can say it that such a person should not be reconfiguring the
> system keyboard setup with gnome-control-center then. Also I kind
> of doubt that GNOME doesn't already have very good internationalisation
> support, but I personally don't have any experience with non-latin setups.

You will be surprised how bad is it.  In order to toggle the keyboard between 
Latin/non-Latin mode one has to click with the mouse on a button in the upper 
right corner of the screen.  Alternatively, one can go in gnome-control-center to 
'Keyboard' and then 'Shortcuts' and then on 'Typing', where there is a 
possibility create a shortcut for changing the keyboard mode.  Notice how hidden 
is this possibility and even if one goes along this long path (control 
center->keyboard->shortcuts->typing) he will find non-informative descriptions 
such as 'Switch to next input source' which tell nothing about changes in the 
keyboard mode.

But suppose our hypothetical user uses Google and finds out this hidden place.  
Then he will be able to use a complex combination such as Control-Alt-K to toggle 
the keyboard mode instead of something more convenient or popular.  For example I 
am using the right Alt to toggle the keyboard mode and I think that in Russia  
people often use the key CapsLock as a toggler and Windows users are used to the 
combinations Alt-Shift and Control-Shift.  By the way, combinations as 
Control-Alt-K are not supported by plain X.  They can not be used outside Gnome 
-- in X or on the console.

(P.S. Some more googling told me that one can use gnome-tweak-tool to configure 
properly the keyboard in Gnome.)

> Then I looked at the examples at the bottom of the manpage....
> Please note how none of them includes XKBMODEL!
> Are the manpage examples broken or what am I missing?

I think it is normal for examples in a man page not to cite whole files but only 
the relevant lines. XKBMODEL has nothing to do with the keyboard layout whose 
configuration is explained in these examples.

> I was initially thinking that hardcoding pc105 would be very ugly, but
> given your explanation now I think it sounds like a sane solution.

If we are talking about keyboard at the Login Screen, then yes -- pc105 is a sane 
solution.  It seems this is the point of view of the developers of gnome control 
center, as in order to configure the system wide keyboard layout the user has to 
press the button 'Login Screen'.

> (Still wondering though if we really need to hardcode an output
> of XKBMODEL=pc105 into /etc/default/keyboard. If this is the default we
> shouldn't need to include it in the configuration file IMHO.

Despite what the developers of gnome control center think, ;) the system wide 
keyboard configuration is used not only at the Login Screen.  While pc105 is more 
or less ok for the Login Screen, it is not always ok in the desktop environment.
The functions of some multimedia and game keyboards will be limited with pc105.

> And as mentioned the examples of keyboard(5) suggest it's not needed....)

The examples suggest the user doesn't need to modify the model in order to change 
the layout.  Think of it in this way:

XKBMODEL -> describes the hardware

XKBLAYOUT,XKBVARIANT,XKBOPTIONS -> describe the intended software behaviour

Anton Zinoviev