Bug 51245 - add keymap setting to [kcm]kdm
Summary: add keymap setting to [kcm]kdm
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: kdm
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Compiled Sources Linux
: LO wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: kdm bugs tracker
URL:
Keywords:
: 64642 134339 156556 185508 212067 223268 250821 280763 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2002-11-27 09:38 UTC by Ismail Donmez
Modified: 2018-04-16 20:20 UTC (History)
19 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


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Description Ismail Donmez 2002-11-27 09:38:00 UTC
Version:            (using KDE Devel)
Installed from:    Compiled sources
Compiler:          gcc 3.2.1 
OS:          Linux

I use Turkish-Q keyboard setting in KDE. And when KDM comes up keyboard resets to US keyboard but when I login KDE default is TR-Q keyboard.

So KDM doesnt check keyboard settings of the system but it should.
Comment 1 Oswald Buddenhagen 2002-12-24 18:56:45 UTC
which keyboard settings exactly is kdm supposed to respect? certainly not the ones 
of any user. 
the historic way of setting up the keyboard for xdm/kdm is to do it right in the 
Xserver config or in the Xsetup script. 
i'll consider adding support for setting the keymap directly, but that won't happen 
any time soon probably. 
 
Comment 2 Ismail Donmez 2002-12-24 19:02:37 UTC
Well easy put a keyboard select dialog to KDM settings under Kcontrol. On the other hand I 
fixed issue by adding XkbLayout option to XF86Config but that for too much hard for an 
avarage user ;) 
Comment 3 Oswald Buddenhagen 2002-12-24 19:11:15 UTC
Subject: Re:  add keymap setting to [kcm]kdm

On Tue, Dec 24, 2002 at 06:02:37PM -0000, Cartman wrote:
> Well easy put a keyboard select dialog to KDM settings under Kcontrol.
>
it's not that easy. particularily because of space reasons in the kcmkdm
... something must really change there, but this is a somewhat bigger
task that it might seem.

> On the other hand I fixed issue by adding XkbLayout option to
> XF86Config but that for too much hard for an avarage user ;)
>
this task is usually handled by distribution-specific setup programs
(and even by programs coming with xfree), so the problem is not that
big.

Comment 4 Ismail Donmez 2002-12-25 07:16:31 UTC
>it's not that easy. particularily because of space reasons in the kcmkdm  
> ... something must really change there, but this is a somewhat bigger  
> task that it might seem. 
Yeah need usability advice here 
 
  
 > this task is usually handled by distribution-specific setup programs  
 > (and even by programs coming with xfree), so the problem is not that  
 > big. 
 True but I would like to leave this bug open and see it fixed before 3.2 is out. But hey you 
are the coder :) 
Comment 5 Oswald Buddenhagen 2006-09-19 18:07:19 UTC
*** Bug 134339 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 6 Kaleb Pederson 2006-09-20 03:35:09 UTC
If I understand everything correctly, there is a different issue as well.  It sounds like the issue being presented is that KDM uses the standard keyboard layout specified in the x configuration file, even though the user account can specify a different language, which, in my opinion, is correct.  I use this behavior right now, but it's a pain to try to type my username and password in a keyboard layout that I don't typically use.

In my case I need to have multiple different keyboard layouts displayed and selectable by the user.  I use the Dvorak layout, but others use the Qwerty layout.  Hence, there should be both a default keyboard layout (perhaps specified by the x configuration file) but KDM should allow the user to select from a set of allowed keyboard layouts to type in.
Comment 7 Mathieu Jobin 2007-01-06 17:01:00 UTC
Windows(tm) has that, I find it particulary useful for passwords. like I'm not too sure how to type my password on the french keyboard. while it might be different for my mother who got no clue about the US keyboard.

yet, i think this settings should be local to KDM. once logged in. the user keyboard settings should kick in. after all, there is already (pretty much) everything a user need within KDE. and i believe its not KDM jobs to set that. it should also be less work to implement.

Comment 8 Mathieu Jobin 2007-01-06 17:06:08 UTC
about kcm, honestly i'm not too sure if that is necessary. the logged user that runs kcm already have his keyboard settings and should be able to type what he wants anywhere, including on a kcm dialog. 

or there is something I am not seeing.
Comment 9 Wouter Horré 2007-02-25 22:23:19 UTC
I have a similar 'problem' as the one in comment #6. I use the US qwerty layout, so this is set as the default in my xorg.conf. But, my girlfriend also has an account on my pc and she uses the be-latin1 (azerty) layout (as most people in belgium do). Imho, it's very difficult to type passwords in a keyboard layout you are not used to. Especially if you have good passwords with special characters and stuff like that.
Comment 10 Oswald Buddenhagen 2007-06-25 17:38:50 UTC
*** Bug 64642 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Oswald Buddenhagen 2008-01-30 13:02:33 UTC
*** Bug 156556 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 Mathieu Jobin 2008-04-24 16:32:50 UTC
is this can be possibly related to bug #55379 ?
Comment 13 Hervé Fache 2008-04-25 23:17:17 UTC
Not quite: the button is the same, but it does not affect the keyboard
layout inside KDE, only KDM.
The point here is to select the keyboard layout at login (and only here) so
we can enter the password :)

HTH, Hervé
Not quite: the button is the same, but it does not affect the keyboard layout inside KDE, only KDM.<br>The point here is to select the keyboard layout at login (and only here) so we can enter the password :)<br><br>HTH, Hervé<br>
Comment 14 Mathieu Jobin 2008-04-26 00:06:52 UTC
I think thats how it should be. we should be able to select the language only to login. once you are login, you're kde settings are already there to take over. 
Comment 15 Hervé Fache 2008-04-26 12:23:45 UTC
Mathieu, I completely agree with you.
Mathieu, I completely agree with you.<br>
Comment 16 Oswald Buddenhagen 2009-03-15 13:35:30 UTC
*** Bug 185508 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 17 BRULE Herman 2009-03-30 18:27:19 UTC
+1 I have need set default keyboard layout to kdm and can be edited in live.
Thanks.
I use KDM 4.2.1
Comment 18 Oswald Buddenhagen 2009-10-27 16:44:14 UTC
*** Bug 212067 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 opensuse.lietuviu.kalba 2009-11-26 14:22:34 UTC
Could we provide keyboard layout selection in KDM mode like GDM do?
Comment 20 Christoph Feck 2010-01-19 00:48:30 UTC
*** Bug 223268 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 21 Martín Cigorraga 2010-07-04 10:50:58 UTC
More of the same here.

I'm running a spanish system and is somewhat painful -and certainly a bit not too professional- to have KDM rely on HAL only... I say, come on! Even GNOME have input support for years, what are you waiting for?

I read all the comments here and I only can agree with what people are saying/asking and feel profound deception with devs&mantainers of KDM, sorry guys.

My ttys work well in spanish, KDE SC once logged work ok too but KDM plain sucks. How much difficult can be to:

1. add an option to choose keyboard layout
2. make that option permanent so it survive reboot (you know, you don't even need a whole config file for this, just one or two lines at kdmrc would be sufficient).

So, what are you waiting for? version 5.0, huh? Seriously guys, I can't believe your patetic answers to what seems an easy to implement, very needed 'feature'.
You just can't be serious about trying to make KDE SC one of the best DE out there, specially for n00bs if them just can't log in, HAHAHAHAHA, c'mon x(

For the record, new version of Xorg server 1.8 screw-up things again and legacy HAL hot-plugging config files are now but deprecated so there's isn't a way to make KDM understands I'm using a spanish keyb, not a US keyb, God... so, as you see, any blabling about how complex would be to add keyboard layout selection is all but loser blablin'...

This is unbelievable people, we are at middle 2010, with an inminent Akademy on the horizont and you refuse to add such a very much needed feature? What are you thinking in?

Unbelievable, unbelievable...
Comment 22 Hervé Fache 2010-07-04 18:15:53 UTC
Instead of saying all these not-so-nice things, why not try and do it yourself? It would look very nice on your CV ;-)
Comment 23 Martín Cigorraga 2010-07-04 19:39:58 UTC
@Hervé: You're obviously wrong.

I didn't say anything "not nice", I only wrote down something what was floating in the air.
Actually I'm a big fan and evangelizer of KDE SC (and Awesome, but with the new KWin-Tiling feature in upcoming 4.5 KDE SC is getting better and better).
This is a construtive critic, like all critic should be, things are actually happing the way I describe them.

I don't wanna be rude with you Hervé, but "honey", did you see when was posted first post here? Go on, check it by yourself. Too lazy?  "ismail ( cartman ) donmez 2002-11-27 09:38:00" HAHAHAHA, almost eight years and this is still unresolved!? And you get upset because someone comes and say "guys, are you asleep or what?"

Don't make me laugh Hervé Fache, you're no Zohan or Peter Griffin.

Are you a dev? In that case I'm not sorry for taking you from your comfort zone but that will kill KDM, know it :) And if you're not, well, you better start taking your head out of the hole and watch reality as it is: "ismail ( cartman ) donmez 2002-11-27 09:38:00": still an unresolved 'unfeature'.

But that isn't what upsets me, no, no, what upsets me here is the arrogant tone some people use to answer this guy Ismail regarding his bug report - and even trying to make a fool of him because what was he saying.

Hervé, if instead making a clown of yourself while trying to be KDM devs Ombudsman you readed twice my bug report I'm sure you should note I indeed give and idea on how to implement this.

Last, you are making the fool with such blahblah: I'm not a C coder yet, I'm still learning by myself and indeed will go University next year to learn Programming in a more academic way, but I do code in other languages.

I also make little artwork and help move forward F/LOSS community like spending plenty of time helping people with her/his issues like "I can't log-in at KDM after update" "Are you using a non US keyboard?" "Yes" "God (sigh)"...

May be YOU, Hervé Fache, they guy with great heart who defend poor devs and big mouth would fix this nasty unfeature of KDM and mark that in your CV!? Am anxious to see that! - not your CV, but KDM fixed :D
Comment 24 Erik Quaeghebeur 2010-07-04 19:50:04 UTC
(In reply to comment #22)

Next to Hervé's suggestion, you could try to contract a KDE-developer to fix
this issue, or organize some kind of pledge (there are sites for that, like
PledgeBank) where those being affected by this bug pledge to donate a certain
amount to the KDE project once this bug is fixed.

(Wouldn't it be nice if such a pledge system were integrated with bugs.kde.org,
I'm sure it would have even more effect than the voting system.)

How I'm affected by this bug: I have an azerty laptop, but am now working in
the States, and so after docking in at work use a full size qwerty keyboard.
So, also given multi-input X, if some amount of initial autodetecting is
possible, it should try to take the issue of multiple connected keyboards into
account. Next to presenting a list of available keymaps, the login dialog could
preselect the right keymap or emulate the current unlocking dialog when a user
name is typed/selected (if (s)he has allowed this in his config), which would
already solve the password entry problem.
Comment 25 Martín Cigorraga 2010-07-04 20:04:48 UTC
> Next to Hervé's suggestion, you could try to contract a KDE-developer to fix
> this issue, or organize some kind of pledge (there are sites for that, like
> PledgeBank) where those being affected by this bug pledge to donate a certain
> amount to the KDE project once this bug is fixed.

Hi Erik, I didn't knew about this pledge system, seems fair enough to me, how you suggest we can implement it?
Comment 26 Erik Quaeghebeur 2010-07-04 21:46:14 UTC
(In reply to comment #25)
> > [...] organize some kind of pledge [...]
> 
> [...], how you suggest we can implement it?

Perhaps you can set something up at http://nextsprocket.com/ 
(like http://nextsprocket.com/tasks/fixing-a-bug-in-kde-with-multiply-xog-runnings)

However, personally, I'd like to hear some KDE developers comment on this idea first to see if it is viable and in what form (money to KDE or individual developer) and what amount would be reasonable to entice somebody to fix it.
There might be good reasons why this pledge/bounty idea hasn't taken off yet: http://live.gnome.org/BountiesDiscussion
Comment 27 François Rey 2010-09-03 09:38:52 UTC
Just adding my vote and encouragement to to this very annoying bug fixed.
I also want to say I'm surprised to see it so old and remain without a solution.
I place the importance of this bug above any other bling-bling kde bug/feature because it hits everyone and particularly linux noobs who get the feeling KDE is a half-baked product right from start, at the login screen.
Comment 28 Oswald Buddenhagen 2010-09-11 10:47:29 UTC
*** Bug 250821 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 29 Matt Whitlock 2011-03-21 13:44:56 UTC
Mac OS X has a layout selection drop-down menu on its system login dialog, too.  It's great because I can switch it to QWERTY when other users want to use my laptop and switch it back to Dvorak when I want to log in.  KDE needs something like this.  Configuring a single static layout in xorg.conf is not a solution.  (People shouldn't even be using xorg.conf anymore!)
Comment 30 Oswald Buddenhagen 2011-08-25 15:47:04 UTC
*** Bug 280763 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 31 volRot 2012-05-23 05:40:13 UTC
Hello,

The KDM login manager has a U.S. keyboard and can not switch to German.
Version 4.8.3 Kubuntu 12:04 KDS SC

Hope to have it properly set here
greeting
Comment 32 Bernd Steinhauser 2012-09-26 10:16:56 UTC
I have to say I'm quite surprised that this is not yet included. After all, kdm has some extended features like grub-support, which are by far more useless than the requested one.

A lot of linux computers are part of a computer pool (at universities, companies, schools), where people from different countries using different keyboard mappings/layouts want to be able to use the computer.

In my opinion, this feature should be essential for all graphical login managers.
Comment 33 evkogan 2013-11-27 15:43:49 UTC
It's base function and 11 years it didn't to do.
And many peoples can't login. 
I don't understand this.
Comment 34 Bernd Steinhauser 2014-01-17 23:39:18 UTC
First, bug 178480 is similar if not a duplicate of this one. Second, I read that sddm is thought of as a replacement of kdm for a future KDE SC based on KF5.
IMO, there are three things which aren't just feature suggestions but requirements for a login manager (apart from the obvious stuff like letting you login if you're a valid user ;)):
1. Accessibility support (magnifier etc.)
2. Keyboard layout support (based on language and variant)
3. Ability to shutdown, suspend/hibernate or restart the system

Almost everything else (unless I forgot something, which is of course entirely possible ;-)) is just a gimmick. I have to say that I am surprised that every dm I looked at (including xdm, gdm, kdm, lightdm and sddm) fails at the second point (not entirely sure about accessibility, so probably the first point as well), although this really should be essential.
So maybe for Qt5 or KF5-based KDM/SDDM, this could be taken into account?
In the end, even windows accomplishes the above even though it sucks at just about anything else regarding login/window management. Ok, maybe that's not the best argument, but still it shows that it can be done and can be done in a useful way.
So fingers crossed for the next bigger round ups, maybe it will happen some day?
Comment 35 Nate Graham 2018-04-16 20:20:29 UTC
KDM is unmaintained and not used in KDE Plasma 5.

SDDM is the login manager used in KDE Plasma 5. If you still have this same issue with SDDM, please file an issue on the SDDM bugtracker (after doing a search for existing issues first!): https://github.com/sddm/sddm/issues/