I have a notebook with an external keyboard. I want to use "German (no dead keys)" on both keyboards, but for the external, it keeps resetting if I unplug it. Actually, it does not really reset - the change is not shown in Settings -> Keyboard - but the accent keys are dead.
Strangely, I can fix that by changing the type between "Generic keyboard with 101 keys" and "Generic keyboard with 105 keys". It does not matter which one I choose, but the change triggers the keyboard layout to be applied again.
For the internal keyboard the correct layout is always applied.
I'm on XUbuntu 13.04, XFCE 4.10.