Keyboard problem in 8.10

[Bruce Marshall]

On Thursday 20 November 2008, Michael Hirsch wrote:
> > I would download the 8.10 iso again but it's a moot point now...  I won't
> > be using Intrepid anyway, with or without KDE3.  I saw too many other
> > problems to make me want to use it.     Sad.
>
> I had some similar problems, but they were partly self inflicted.
> Somehow the keycodes have changed on my keyboard.  I use xmodmap to
> remap the windows keys to function keys and then bind the funtion keys
> to useful things like "maximize vertically".  The change in keycodes
> meant that I ended up mapping some of my arrow keys to these
> functions.  I used xev to see what was going on, then redid my
> .xmodmap file.
>
> If you haven't done any remapping, I wouldn't think this would affect
> you, but you can still use xev to see what's going on.  Run xev from a
> terminal window, click the resulting window with your mouse, then try
> hitting an arrow key.  See what X thinks is happening.
>
> It sounds to me like your keyboard isn't quite getting recognized
> properly.  You could  try another model of keyboard, too.

Lots of very good advice here....   thanks.

I ran xev in 8.04 to see what comes across.  Everything seemed fine.

When I ran it in 8.10, the up/down/right cursor buttons were the same but when 
I do a left cursor, it appears that xev sees nothing.  Nothing happens in the 
xev screen.

However, something is happening because if I start xev, press right cursor, 
and then ctl-c,  xev quits like it should.   But if I start xev and press 
left cursor and then ctl-c, it takes three  ctl-c's to get it to quit, and 
after the 2nd press, a small c with an accent ( č ) appears.   So there are 
some characters being transferred but xev isn't telling.

As I said before, the left cursor worked at the "test your keyboard" point of 
the install....  

I just fired up the 8.10 live cd, and the left cursor works there too so it is 
only the installed system that seems to have a problem.