shift + left alt not working

Question

I´m currently unable to make special characters using left alt on my MacBook Pro, Swedish keyboard (running for an external SSD, Ubuntu 14.04).

For example, if i try to make a pair of curly brackets using left alt, i.e. shift+left alt+8 and 9 nothing happens - it only works using right alt. However, left alt do work with other keyboard shortcuts like ctrl+left alt+T. I have tried different keyboard layouts and to look for suitable options in system preferences -> text entry. I did notice that there are similar questions to mine, but they involve special characters using left ctrlleft alt, and not left shiftleft alt. Is it a simple fix to this?

Thank you!

Answer 1

This is what I had to do (Taken from this answer):

sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

• Choose the 104-key layout (thanks to this answer)
• Use the default options for the rest

sudo service keyboard-setup restart

And that was it! Now my keyboard's alt + shift combination works again! More specifically, the ones on the left of the keyboard.

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In case you were curious, my laptop is a Lenovo G510, and I am running Ubuntu 16.04 at the time of writing this answer.

Answer 2

Characters as {} [] ~ @ ² ³ µ are not selected by the control+7 key combination (i.e. the { char) but by control+alt+7. The right key on PC/AT keyboard has a special meaning, it is the same as pressing left alt+ctrl keys - that is why it is inscriped AltGr.

So for my understanding it is all fine with your keyboard.