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I have Ubuntu 11.10. I have an English keyboard and have set the keyboard layout to English (UK) in the System settings -> Keyboard Layout. It is the only layout listed.

Recently my keyboard has gone to US layout. I don't know why and I cannot change it back.
The " and @ are in the wrong place.

I've typed man loadkeys and the documentation tells me that the default keymap is probably in a file called defkeymap.map either in /usr/share/keymaps or in /usr/src/linux/drivers/char. I can find neither of these directories. Can anybody tell me where the defkeymap.map file is in my distribution, or if it is there at all?

6 Answers 6

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I had the same issue. Even though English (UK) was selected for everything it was still using a US layout.

For some reason adding English (US) keyboard layout below the English (UK) entry in System Settings -> Region & Language -> Layouts made everything work.

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  • 2
    This solved it for me too on Ubuntu 13! I just had English (UK) selected and the character mapping of my british keyboard was totally screwed, even if when I clicked on the Keyboard Layout it showed the right one. I added the English (US) layout, which I don't need, but kept English (UK) layout selected and it immediately solved the issue!
    – jbx
    Dec 13, 2013 at 10:28
  • Similar problem in 14.04 after a fresh upgrade, and this fixed it.
    – E.P.
    Jun 25, 2014 at 10:39
  • This awser is still valid 6 years later. It worked for me in mint 18.1.
    – Presbitero
    Apr 21, 2019 at 0:10
  • Works on Ubuntu 20.04, Focal Fossa, too.
    – Mike
    Apr 6, 2021 at 11:48
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I have this problem in 14.04 According to everything that I look at I'm using En1 (UK) but it is actually En2 (US). eg

/etc/default/keyboard says "gb"

It switches back regularly. It says UK but it isn't. The keyboard layout chart shows things as they should be, but they aren't.

Workaround #1: If I switch from En1 to En2 & back it corrects itself until the next time I reboot.

It looks like we're dealing with this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ibus/+bug/1284635

A workaround involving customising ibus-setup from this page did not work for me.

Removing Ibus seems to work. Hooray! Well it takes most of the Unity System Settings with it. Not good :(

Workaround #2: Look in your home directory & press control h to see hidden files. Open ~/.config/ibus/bus & delete the file therein. Then reboot.

This works until the next time that you do an upgrade, then you need to do it again, unless, after that first reboot, you change the permissions to make the file read-only.

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In dash type "gnome-keyboard-properties" this should open the keyboard preferences

or gksudo gedit /etc/default/keyboard

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  • Thanks for the reply. The dashboard failed to open anything, but I'm now using Ubuntu 12.04 TLS and don't have this problem now. The command gksudo gedit /etc/default/keyboard did open a file from the command line. It contained the line XKBLAYOUT="gb". Aug 26, 2012 at 10:28
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  1. System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Language > Select + and select your language
  2. System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Format > Select your region
  3. System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Layouts > Select + and select your language

Done!

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to solve this problem on my computer it was necessary to switch back to the UK keyboard using the keyboard-shortcut ('Super' + space-bar);

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  • Thank you I just switched my keyboard mapping by mistake using keys only but didn't know which ones !
    – Polypheme
    Mar 10, 2020 at 22:07
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I am using ubuntu 13.1 and had same problem.

In System Settings > Keyboard Layout > Language

there were 2 languages listed english (uk) english (us)

I deleted the english (us) option by selecting it then using the - key to delete it, so that only the english(uk) choice was listed in the box.

This seems to have worked and keyboard is correctly mapped

simon

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