I've been having problems using alt-"character" to enter ASCII characters in Ubuntu. Is there any way to enable this character set in Ubuntu (preferably so its available before logging in if possible)? So far I've had no success getting any of the symbols to register. Many thanks in advance for any ideas. Cheers

I am not sure I understand your question. Is it about using the alt key?

In the OS of which we don't speak I have always been able to press and hold the <alt> key while pressing another key. This gives me access to about 255 different characters. However on the same computer in Ubuntu doing this has zero effect. Ubuntu doesn't even seem to recognize the keystroke combinations as anything, because the cursor doesn't even advance one space. My searches for a solution have been in vain so far. Also I was wondering if there was a way to enable the <alt><keystroke> combination settings, so they would be available for passwords, prior to logging into linux as well.

I was unaware of the behavior you speak of in that (ahem) other OS. I do know that in the default configuration for Gnome in edgy eft, the left and right alt keys exhibit different behaviors. When trying to type into in a gnome-terminal holding the left alt key, either nothing happened or it activated a menu or some such depending on the character I typed. However, when holding the right alt key, typing produced the character I typed w/o any of that other behavior.

I believe this is controlled by Applications -> Preferences -> Keyboard -> Layout Options (the last being a tab). There are a bunch of options in this tab that you might want to investigate. But on my computer, under Third level options, the box for Press right Alt key to select 3rd level is checked, which I think is what is giving the behavior I just described. My box is configured vanilla US/English. I am guessing this is why this presumed "third level" just produced the same result as not pressing the alt key. My conjecture is that for some other localization settings, this third level would produce different characters. I don't know if this is what you are talking about, but you might check out the options on that tab.

I'm fairly sure it depends a lot about the keymap you are using. It's been a while since I last time needed these ALT+something ASCII "special" letters, but I did it on Ubuntu (Dapper? Edgy? should not matter though) without any problems (localization was non-english, if it makes difference). The results, though were not the same as on other operating systems; the same ALT+something combination produced different letters on my end than on my friend's end (different OS), and even so that when I posted some of the letters (for a test) online, my friend saw "empty boxes" instead of the special chars. Leads me to think it's highly dependent about the keymap you're using, so even if it worked in local environment, don't trust it works everywhere.

I suggest you try it in console too (CTRL+ALT+F1 -> login -> try -> exit -> CTRL+ALT+F7 or something) and see if that works. On a graphical desktop it's possible that the desktop, for example Gnome, notes your keys pressed before anything else and if they're configured to do something, you won't get the results. It's up to how the keys like Meta (ALT) are configured.

Sorry I can't be of more help right now, but I'd start off in console environment, as there you don't have any fancy desktops between you and the shell

My impression is that the DE (for example Gnome) sometimes just loads its own keymap so that the results between virtual consoles and DEs could be completely different. If so, two completely independent customizations might be required. But I know so little about keymaps this should be taken as just conjecture until somebody verifies it.