Hi. this is most probably a desktop environment issue.
here goes:
every time I (re)boot, I have to reset my keyboard layout back from standard american to something german that I want to use

here's the story:
I've been running kubuntu (latest) with KDE 3.x (latest; not v4) and as it was a pain to watch the hours pass I decided to switch to xfce and am now running the latest version (4.x) which at first worked perfectly until I got rid of KDE also, setting the machine to use gdm by doing

dpkg-reconfigure gdm

now I don't have to activate the desktop manager manually which is great because I use it anyway, but now I have this stupid keyboard prob which irks. however, xfce settings manager seems to remember the settings but does not apply them. so I check and uncheck the box "use x configuration" at every logon.

clever ideas appreciated a lot. thanks.

look at the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard
file...

Specify your keyboard in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. There is a version of the proprietary nvidia driver that defaults to US layout if xorg.conf does not specify anything else.

perfect. thanks