Puppy strange behaviour with latin1 keyboard (SOLVED)

[vito49]

Hello all,

Sorry if I'm using the wrong place to ask this question and please be aware I'm completely new to Puppy Linux, not to Linux, I use it for many years ... But i now tested PL on my desktop PC (that is running LMDE normally) and it works great on it, in fact I'm composing this post with Puppy Linux, but when I try to use PL on my wife's laptop the keyboard goes crazy.

Half of the keyboard can't be used and I just found out that all keys with a "blue" character on it (normally to be used with the Fn key) are set, NOT the normal character. As an example, when I type shift + O to get a "zero" it doesn't shows a zero but an asterisk "*", the character that is located on the same key, but in blue. ALL keys with a blue character on it behave the same way .... Installing the "azerty" option in PL doesn't solve the problem.
The keyboard is not broken, there is windows Xp on it for now and the keyboard works the way it has to do with Windows.

Sorry if this is confusing or not good explained, I'm not English ...

Acer Aspire 3100 with Azerty keyboard
be-latin1 keyboard (set in PL) = Azerty
Puppy Linux Precise 5.6.1

Again, on my desktop everything goes well, no problems with the usb-keybord.

It would be great to solve this problem because one of the coming days my wife is going to buy a new laptop (sorry, with Windows 8, she followed computer lessons and in that class they never heard about Linux) and I'm going to claim her old Acer for Linux. With Puppy, of course.

Many thanks for any suggestions how to solve this and to get a normal Azerty latin 1 keyboard on the Acer.

Greetings from Aarschot in Belgium/Europe

Vito49

[Bert]

Hi vito49 and welcome here!

I live in Belgium too and never had this keyboard problem.
Be-latin1 has always worked directly and faultless.

Are you sure it is a standard azerty keyboard? I'm asking because there shouldn't be an asterisk on the '0' key. Under the '0' there should be 'à' and '}'

Maybe you can try the input wizard: (menu>setup>mouse/ keyboard wizard>Advanced Xorg Keyboard Configuration and choose "keyboard variants".
Hopefully one of those will get your keyboard going.

If not, I think this is a good article on azerty and Belgian azerty.

Good luck!

[vito49]

Hi vito49 and welcome here!

I live in Belgium too and never had this keyboard problem.
Be-latin1 has always worked directly and faultless.

Are you sure it is a standard azerty keyboard? I'm asking because there shouldn't be an asterisk on the '0' key. Under the '0' there should be 'à' and '}'

Hello Bert, it works with my desktop azerty keyboard, without any problems. But not with the laptop.
The laptop (Acer) has an azerty keyboard but there are many keys on it containing other characters than my "normal" azerty desktop keyboard. Don't get me wrong, on the 0 key there are "à" and "}" but also "*", but this one has a blue colour and is in the upper right corner of the key. Whatever I do, hitting the 0 key produces an asterisk. All keys containing these blue characters (almost half of the keyboard) produce these blue characters ans no other ....

Another weird thing is that the laptop works as a normal azerty keyboard under Windows XP ....

I shall try it the way you suggested later this evening and let you know.

Vito49

[vito49]

Hello, my problem is solved.

Let me try to explain

I did my first-run setup on my desktop PC, everything was OK, but I also set the numlock because my desktop keyboard has a numeric keypad.
Now, when I use the same settings on the laptop (saved on an USB stick),which is normal for a system like Puppy, the numlock is set too, but ... the laptop doesn't have a numeric keypad. It does has a key to toggle between numlock on and numlock off, and that is done with "Fn + F11", Fn being the special key for special characters, On key F11 there is a very small "numlock" sign.
This is very confusing because toggling the numlock doesn't do anything to numbers but it toggles the Fn key. With other words, from the moment Puppy is loaded ALL keys containing an additional character (in blue) are ready to react as if the Fn key was pressed too.
If you ask me, it would have been more normal if F11 didn't contain the text "numlock" but "FnLock" ...

I now only have to switch numlock off when I'm using the laptop and everything is Okay. Between us, it took me several hours to find out, I'm not that proud of myself

Sorry for my bad English ....

Vito49

[musher0]

Hello.

I was going to tell you that solution but you found out by yourself!

And don't feel too "un-proud": the solution is not well advertised, so I too also had to spend many hours researching it, when I accepted to repair a friend's portable with cf keyboard.

But you had the intelligence of sharing the solution!

Bye for now!

musher0

[Bert]

.

I now only have to switch numlock off when I'm using the laptop and everything is Okay. Between us, it took me several hours to find out, I'm not that proud of myself

Vito49

Hello vito49,

Glad it is solved
It would probably have taken several days for me to see the solution to this unusual problem...

Have fun!