GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 63263
Feature Request: The ability to change keymaps
Last modified: 2006-01-13 00:12:39 UTC
The ability to change keymaps from the login panel is a necessary feature, so that different users of the same machine that use different keymaps can log in. (eg. dvorak vs querty keymap users :)
Has anyone had a chance to look into this?
*** Bug 100719 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The implementation for this would be calling loadkeys and setxkbmap with the keymap as a param to switch between maps. From my .bashrc file; this is how I switch between dvorak and qwerty. asdf() { loadkeys dvorak setxkbmap dvorak } aoeu() { loadkeys us setxkbmap us } Without the option to switch a keymap, one cannot even login. The default keymap specified in the XF86Config file is currently used by gdm.
*** Bug 57363 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I think this is a very low-priority bug. As devcore@freekuk.com points out, it is fairly simple to set the default keymap used your a user's session. The keyboard-selector applet can be used to do this as well. I'm not sure that there is much value in GDM allowing the user to switch to a different keyboard just to enter their username and password. While it might be a bit inconvenient to use an unfamiliar keyboard to do this, there typically isn't that much typing involved. Navigating some menu (or whatever mechanism you could provide to switch the keyboard) would probably take longer than just going ahead and typing the username/password with the default keyboard mapping. However, if someone felt strongly that this added value to them and wanted to make it possible to switch keyboard layout for the login screen, then I would accept the patch.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 307926 ***