Hello all,

I happen to have two different U-Mate laptops, which were preloaded with the very same version 16.04LTS by the hardware supplier some months ago. The difference is, one was with a 'regional' keyboard (french keymap), the other kept a standard QWERTY one. I did start them almost alike, we used them alike too, and now my hardware supplier did receive the french keyboard for the second laptop, and sent it to us.

After the delicate operation that a laptop keyboard switch does represent for me, I discover that when logged, I can set the keyboard to whichever mapping I want in (surprisingly) two separate ways : one via Control Center > keyboard, and an apparently entierely independent thing in the general menu, called iBus. But well, when both are set to french, the french keyboad actually works, including for entering password if I lock the screen.

Now, things begin to be interesting when I reboot : at that moment, the keyboard is still considered a standard QWERTY one. This whatever I do in Control Center and iBus. (I went up to delete completely the QWERTY alternatives there, rebooted etc.)

This situation is all the more bothering me, that on the other laptop -the one that came factory-mounted with a french keyboard, the login password definitely respects the french mapping.

From reading contributions here on this topic I discover that apparently what happens at boot time highly depends on distributions : all I read concerned others, which setting files visibly are NOT located at the same place as on Ubuntu... so I feel quite beyond my area of competence here ;-)

And of course, mind you : the faulty machine is that for my S. O. :-)

I was wondering if this is a BIOS setting.

It makes me think that the system detects the French keyboard at time of install. Therefore grub may have been installed with an assumption for a U.S. QWERTY keyboard layout versus the French one. Perhaps try:with the French keyboard plugged in?

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This nothing to do with BIOS or Grub. BIOS has nothing to do with the keyboard. The Linux boot routine only checks for the presence of a keyboard and its hardware type: PC, Mac, Sun, etc. QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards of the same type generate the same codes.

The choice of keyboard driver is made after you log in. The desktop checks which language you want and compiles a driver by combining the source code from the hardware and language files. So, what's happening is that the record default keyboard is being lost every time you shut down. That's a new one on me! I'm no expert on Ubuntu, but you might check the locate setting by using the command locale. If the first line looks like
LANG="EN.UTF-8"
that'll be the trouble. If so, make sure you actually have a French locale available with the command
locale -a | grep -i fr
and then use a command like
update-locale LANG=FR.UTF-8

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Many thanks for this help : without you I'd be plain unable to understand where I am...
Alas, I still have trouble... Following your advice here is what I do:

~$ locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=fr_FR:en_US:en <--THIS is different from the 'good' machine, where I only have 'LANGUAGE=fr_FR'
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
(etc. with everything else properly set to FR.UTF-8) LC_ALL=


I check the french locale does exist indeed :


~$ locale -a | grep -i fr
fr_BE.utf8
fr_CA.utf8
fr_CH.utf8
fr_FR.utf8
fr_LU.utf8


(the above is the same as on the 'good' machine)

I have a failure with

sudo update-locale LANG=FR.UTF-8
[sudo] Mot de passe de f... :
*** update-locale: Error: invalid locale settings: LC_MONETARY="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_IDENTIFICATION="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_NAME="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_TELEPHONE="fr_FR.UTF-8" LANG=FR.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_MEASUREMENT="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_TIME="fr_FR.UTF-8" LANGUAGE="fr_FR:en_US:en" LC_ADDRESS="fr_FR.UTF-8" LC_PAPER="fr_FR.UTF-8"


Then I tried with 'fr_FR' instead of just FR :


~$ sudo update-locale LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
[sudo] Mot de passe de f... :

(no negative message)

~$ locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=fr_FR:en_US:en <-- no better :-( :-(
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
(etc.)

~$ sudo update-grub <-- will not work either:
[sudo] Mot de passe de frederique :
Création du fichier de configuration GRUB…
Attention : Définir GRUB_TIMEOUT à une valeur non nulle si GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT est définie n’est plus possible.
Image Linux trouvée : /boot/vmlinuz-4.11.1-041101-generic
Image mémoire initiale trouvée : /boot/initrd.img-4.11.1-041101-generic
Adding boot menu entry for EFI firmware configuration
fait
~$ locale
LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=fr_FR:en_US:en <-- no better either
LC_CTYPE="fr_FR.UTF-8"
(...)

Let's check that you can use the keyboard correctly in bios just to see.
Then we can move on to next.

Might be that booting to a fully localized distro where you select choices at boot may help understand what is going on.

I've seen bad keyboards too.

Thanks Jefro.
How do I do this?

Boot to bios usually and see if you can use keyboard shortcuts and such.

It is possible that I don't fully understand the issue.

In my mind, while the two laptops may have similar OS's on them from factory, they may not be exactly the same. If the OEM did provide it in working order then we should assume that it can work. When you install a distro they usually ask for local by some means. Either an automated installer or by install program. You can usually re-start than installer to correct issues and may work. You can also sometimes set grub to correct the keyboard or other boot time options. You may be able to change fully the keyboard in a setting or more.

In worse case, I suppose you could clone the working system over.

I had a system with a GB_en keyboard set. Some of the keys are switched around from an US_en keyboard. I finally solved the problem by setting the keyboard region in gnome-control-center.

Alas, this does not work. I still have the mangle 'locale' announcing a mix of qwerty qnd french keyboards, and I don't know where this is coming from...
Jefro I didn't try the BIOS boot yet, which is something a bit terrifying for my level, but I'll do

This would be the computer BIOS, meaning the SETUP screen. Something which has been with computers for many years, even if perhaps you have little experience with it. For the model of computer you have there should be a key to press right after you turn it on, to cause it to enter the BIOS, or SETUP menu. Once in there, the screens are fairly brief, they are how you can do things like perform hardware diagnosis, or extra setup of your computer.

Earlier you wrote "U-Mate" and said they are laptops, but I did not find an exact match. Closest I see are some from Huawei. Can you please give the manufacturer name and model of the laptop? It should be on a sticker on the bottom.

From there we can give you more specific instructions, such as what key to press to cause it to enter the BIOS menu during boot, and then also perhaps some recommendations what BIOS menus to look at to see how it detects your keyboard.

By U-Mate I meant Ubuntu Mate, sorry. The laptops are Tuxedo ones, both from this year.

That doesn't look good!

You'll have to do this the old fashioned way. Launch your text editor from the terminal using sudo and edit the file /etc/default/locale. Just remove the "en_US:en" part. After you've saved, set the keyboard again and then reboot and see if it stays set.

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From here? https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/Tuxe...-Hardware.geek

Well there are a number of models, a quick web search for tuxedo computer bios key shows German documents or references citing F7, F10, or F11 as the key to press to get into BIOS "depending on the model"

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I just did this, and now am terrified at the fact that, being on holidays, we don't have any usb external keyboard to try to login if something failed :-D
But, I'm going to attempt -just when she's done working!
Indeed -in fact my main issue is I have little knowledge of what to do when on the BIOS. Shall I assume it's something like a simplified Terminal interaction?

Many thanks to both of you!!
H.