[xkb] KDE Plasma (Wayland) does not support layouts in ~/.config/xkb

[fabi1cazenave]

A possible workaround would be to set environment variables to select keyboard layouts explicitely :

# ~/.config/plasma-workspace/env/setkeymap.sh
export QT_LOGGING_RULES="kwin_*.debug=true"
export XKB_LOG_VERBOSITY=10
export KWIN_XKB_DEFAULT_KEYMAP=yes
export XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=fr,us
export XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=ergol,altgr-intl
export XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS=# les options que tu veux
export XKB_CONTEXT_NO_SECURE_GETENV=yes

Related KDE bugs :

• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=471273
• https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=432818
• https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/commit/6e87fae7f72416e1108b00c7abdfd438dc713706

[gagbo]

It definitely works like that. The 2 main issues are:

• you need to log out and log back in to change keyboard layouts, and
• the graphical settings (ksettings5 or something) still won’t show the layouts in ~/.config/xkb, so you need to trust

[fabi1cazenave]

This means that :

• the xkb/symbols/custom trick still is the most reliable way to install a keyboard layout at the moment
• sudo-installing layouts into xkb/symbols should still be preferred for KDE users (or maybe xkb/symbols/kalamine, see [xkb] do not install in existing xkb/symbols/[locale] files #122)

I assume ksettings can see these layouts in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols ?

[fabi1cazenave]

TIL : KDE not supporting XKB layouts is not a bug, it’s a feature.

KWIN_XKB_DEFAULT_KEYMAP
This environment variable forces the xkb integration on Wayland to use a default keymap instead of using the configured one. Mostly required for testing. This environment variable is supported since 5.8.

https://community.kde.org/KWin/Environment_Variables#KWIN_XKB_DEFAULT_KEYMAP

[wismill]

Mostly required for testing.

So the workaround above is confirmed to be a big hack.

[fabi1cazenave]

Seriously, KDE ?

• the default keymap does support ~/.config/xkb on Wayland
• our KDE magic does not
• everything is fine, but let’s make an environment variable for testing

I really don’t get it. Why would a DE ever want to rely on its own magic rather than XKB for keyboard management ?

[wismill]

The issue is that they have their own rules parser. So there are currently 2 workarounds:

1. The hack above
2. Editing directly ~/.config/kxkbrc. The GUI configuration then does display the right config, but becomes buggy if you change it. I do not see Kalamine modifying this file, but for me it’s a better workaround than the first one.

[fabi1cazenave]

If their parser supports /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules properly, I think we should just consider KDE as not compatible with ~/.config/xkb yet and make kalamine refuse to install layouts in user space when KDE is running — even if Wayland is detected.

So I guess we mostly have to inpect a KDE-specific environment variable and let kalamine decide accordingly ?

[fabi1cazenave]

I’m a bit worried though. Is it okay to consider that all Wayland desktop environments properly support ~/.config/xkb, and that KDE is just an exception ? Or should we take it the other way around, and only white-list DEs for which a proper ~/.config/xkb support has been confirmed ?

[wismill]

No idea. I would say it depends if they use xkbcommon-registry. I would say yes for all DE designed for Wayland from the beginning. For the others… your mileage may vary!

[RichardFevrier]

Seems to be fixed for the next plasma release.

[cfergeau]

I’m a bit worried though. Is it okay to consider that all Wayland desktop environments properly support ~/.config/xkb, and that KDE is just an exception ? Or should we take it the other way around, and only white-list DEs for which a proper ~/.config/xkb support has been confirmed ?

As a data point, GNOME supports ~/.config/xkb, I added these 3 files to get ergol support on f40/GNOME, and I got ergol entries in gnome control center as expected:

.config/xkb/rules/evdev
.config/xkb/rules/evdev.xml
.config/xkb/symbols/ergol