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[Bug 214786] Re: Apple USB ISO keyboard has incorrectly swapped keys

 

For those who aren't using gnome the following may help. Add
apple:badmap option to the "XkbOptions" in the "InputDevice" section in
your xorg.conf. The section should look like:

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Generic Keyboard"
    Driver         "kbd"
    Option         "CoreKeyboard"
    Option         "XkbRules" "xorg"
    Option         "XkbModel" "apple"
    Option         "XkbLayout" "us,ru"
    Option         "XkbVariant" ",winkeys"
    Option         "XkbOptions" "grp:shift_caps_toggle,apple:badmap"
EndSection

This should swap problematic keys under X. If it doesn't help one can
try adding apple:goodmap instead.

-- 
Apple USB ISO keyboard has incorrectly swapped keys
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/214786
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Mactel
Support, which is the registrant for Mactel Support.

Status in Mactel Support: New
Status in Source Package "linux" in Ubuntu: Triaged

Bug description:
Since upgrading kernel to version 2.6.24-12.22 two keys are now swapped on my Apple USB aluminium keyboard with danish layout. Now the keys "<" and "½" are swapped and no longer matches the actual print on the keycaps.

The error is isolated to the following commit: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/ubuntu-hardy.git;a=commitdiff;h=efb3031b446d441dca5b10619503ac0bba7f9748

This commit introduced a key swapping for all "ISO" type Apple keyboards. In my case this swapping is incorrect, and generally it seems like a very bad idea to perform hard coded locale specific key mapping in kernel space as this is also done several places in user space.

The included patch reverts the behavior to the default that matches the keycap printing.