Keyboard screwup

[bilyo]

Leave it to me to screw up a good thing!  I recently purchased a new Lenovo 530 and installed the latest PCLOS. I was very impressed that most everything was recognized and properly configured. I expected to have some problems with the Broadcom wireless. Anyway, the keyboard is my problem. The generic keyboard generally worked but the cursor would occasionally jump so that I would end up typing something where it was not supposed to be.  A pretty good fix was to select one of the IBM keyboards.  However, even that caused some minor problems when working in one of the wordprocessors. In trying to find a good keyboard selection, I selected one that screwed everything up; few of the characters are in the correct position and some are missing altogether. I can no longer log in as root in order to change it.  I can boot in safe mode into a console but I don't know how to change the keyboard from the command line. Your advice would be appreciated.

[Texstar]

Leave it to me to screw up a good thing!  I recently purchased a new Lenovo 530 and installed the latest PCLOS. I was very impressed that most everything was recognized and properly configured. I expected to have some problems with the Broadcom wireless. Anyway, the keyboard is my problem. The generic keyboard generally worked but the cursor would occasionally jump so that I would end up typing something where it was not supposed to be.  A pretty good fix was to select one of the IBM keyboards.  However, even that caused some minor problems when working in one of the wordprocessors. In trying to find a good keyboard selection, I selected one that screwed everything up; few of the characters are in the correct position and some are missing altogether. I can no longer log in as root in order to change it.  I can boot in safe mode into a console but I don't know how to change the keyboard from the command line. Your advice would be appreciated.

Option 1. Boot into safemode and run /usr/bin/drakkeyboard (untested)

Option 2. Boot into safemode and run rm -rf /etc/sysconfig/keyboard (untested)

Option3. Boot LiveCD and copy /etc/sysconfig/keyboard to the /etc/sysconfig folder on the installed partition. (tested)

[Jaws]

Try the keyboard model --> Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro / Microsoft. [ducks for cover!]

I’ve had great success with it on a Lenovo R61.

Cheers

[pags]

Leave it to me to screw up a good thing!  I recently purchased a new Lenovo 530 and installed the latest PCLOS. I was very impressed that most everything was recognized and properly configured. I expected to have some problems with the Broadcom wireless. Anyway, the keyboard is my problem. The generic keyboard generally worked but the cursor would occasionally jump so that I would end up typing something where it was not supposed to be.  A pretty good fix was to select one of the IBM keyboards.  However, even that caused some minor problems when working in one of the wordprocessors. In trying to find a good keyboard selection, I selected one that screwed everything up; few of the characters are in the correct position and some are missing altogether. I can no longer log in as root in order to change it.  I can boot in safe mode into a console but I don't know how to change the keyboard from the command line. Your advice would be appreciated.

Have you considered that the problem may be that you're inadvertently hitting the touch-pad while typing, causing the mouse to click and re-position the cursor?  Look into ?synaptics? qt-synaptics? to adjust the senstivity...

EDIT
Just check the Synaptic Package Manager, and the software I was thinking of is called "qsynaptics"

A QT application to configure Synaptic TouchPad
QSynaptics aims to help desktop users to configure their synaptics touch pad
that's commonly used in laptops.  The program uses Qt 3.2, is easy to manage
and performs the basic configuration steps to use your pad more efficiently.
The program is based on the X11 synaptics touch pad driver.

EDIT2
Came across this...might be relevant:
http://forum.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-3000-and-Value-line/When-will-Lenovo-fix-the-G550-ALPS-touchpad-problems/m-p/212945#M18611

[bilyo]

Texstar,  I grabbed my livecd/install disc to try option 3.  However, it would not boot. Got an error message regarding "no suitable media for the livecd content found". I'll deal with this in a separate post. Tried option 1 and it worked just fine. I'm back to where I started. Thanks.

Jaws, I'll try the Microsoft keyboard suggestion. Thanks.

pags, Yes. The touchpad is also a problem that I have made some adjustments to via the Admin Center with only moderate success. I'll  try your suggestion. Thanks.

[parnote]

bilyo,

I also have a Lenovo G530, and the touchpad is super sensitive. I experienced the same problem as you, with the cursor jumping all around the screen, simply from the weight of my hand on the palm rest of the laptop.

My solution was a bit different, however. I did NOT change my keyboard config (I left it set for the default that the installer put there for it). Instead, I turned off the touchpad, and I rely on a wireless optical mouse. The mouse gives me finer control than the touchpad, anyways.

To turn off the touchpad, enter the following in terminal:

Code: [Select]

synclient TouchpadOff=1
Once I did, then there was no more jumpy mouse cursor on the screen, and everything works as it's supposed to.

To make things simpler, I created two simple bash scripts. The reside in my /home directory. One is called "TouchpadOff" and the other is called "TouchpadOn", just in case I should ever want to turn the touchpad on again. I then placed a symlink to "TouchpadOff" in my .kde4/Autostart folder, so it is ran every time I boot my computer.

I hope this is helpful to you!

parnote