Hi. I need to understand how the evdev thing works.BackgroundA while ago, I think I had Ubuntu 7.10 or 8.04, I made my own keyboard layout. The point with it is that I easily can reach all my favourite character directly from the keyboard by using the AltGr key (I guess that's the same as the right Alt key on those keyboards with no AltGr key…). So now every key (almost) has four different characters, and I even can type with the Enter key and the arrow keys, and they still work as the Enter and arrow keys respectively, for example AltGr+Enter=↵, AltGr+Shift+Right arrow=⇨ and so on. Another point is that I don't have the same characters on more than one key (well, I have, but when I find yet another character I need, it will end up on one of those doublets), so I have no longer 0-9 above the qwerty row; they are all on the numerical key pad only. This all worked perfectly before upgrading to 8.10 and one of the differences compared to 8.04 is that 8.10 seems to use evdev, whatever that is. The difference that I can see, is that I now need to manipulate files that are called evdev.lst and evdev.xml instead of the old base.lst and base.xml. The old files are still there, but Ubuntu 8.10 doesn't seem to use them. How I made my own layoutFirst I considered my own layout as another language, which I thought would make things easier when adding new characters, so I made a file called "se-Johnny" with all the info needed, and I put a link to i in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/. Then I needed to add some lines in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.xml and one line in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst. That was it and it worked perfectly. After upgrade to 8.10 it didn't work anymore, and I studied all the files and finally found how to change them to make it work, among other thins I needed to use the evdev files rather than the base files, but it still had some disadvantages, so I changed the concept. Now I include my own layout as a variant of the Swedish layout, simply called "Sweden – Johnny Rosenberg". I put it at the end of /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/se and I changed /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.lst (a few rows) and /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml. ProblemI can now select my layout and it works perfectly. All the characters are available where I expect them. The problem is that every now and then, sometimes after several hours and sometimes after a few seconds, the system switch back to the standard Swedish layout. I can see when this happens, because right before it happens (often when I type something), the system doesn't seem to react to one of the key strokes. I then hit the same key again and it seems to work, but when I try to use my own characters, they are not there anymore. Then I open the layout dialogue (in gnome-keyboard-properties → layouts) and add a new layout, doesn't matter which, then I select my own (Sweden Johnny Rosenberg) in the list. Then I remove the layout I just added, whichever that was. Now it works again, until the same thing happens again after a while. Can be a couple of hours or maybe only a couple of seconds. I have looked in /var/logs/ but I am not sure what to look for, and I found nothing so far.Solution?What I need now, I think, is to understand how evdev works. It seems like some error happens and that the system switch back to something "safe", just in case. I don't know if my layout is the problem or if the problem is located somewhere else. Sometimes when strange things happens the problem is Compiz-Fusion. Maybe in my case too, I don't know. I use it when I switch desktop and applications, but hardly ever for anything else. I just need to understand better how evdev works, which files the system use and things like that. How to proceed with debugging etc.I was also thinking of an ugly solution: When I type xprop -root | grep -i xkb, I get the following information: _XKB_RULES_NAMES_BACKUP(STRING) = "evdev", "pc105", "se", "", "" _XKB_RULES_NAMES(STRING) = "evdev", "pc105", "se", "johnny", "grp:alts_toggle,lv3:ralt_switch,compose:caps,altwin:left_meta_win" Is there a way that I can make the _XKB_RULES_NAMES_BACKUP(STRING) the same as _XKB_RULES_NAMES(STRING)? Because it seems to me that what happens is that when some kind of fault occurs, the keyboard layout is switched to whatever _XKB_RULES_NAMES_BACKUP(STRING) says. So if I could setboth of them to "evdev", "pc105", "se", "johnny", "grp:alts_toggle,lv3:ralt_switch,compose:caps,altwin:left_meta_win", I could just ignore what ever happened… Or maybe that's the dangerous way…? Best regards Johnny Rosenberg