Messy keyboard. SOLVED

Question

I'm using gnome with compiz. Sometimes lxde, and sometimes openbox with tint2.
For the second time this week, the keyboard got crazy.  I was using the system (gnome) doing trivial
things and suddenly it started happening.
I hit a key and it prints another (e.g. hit p and it prints *, hit m and it prints 0). Seems like it changes the layout.
It gets so messy that I can't type any more commands.
I log out X, even ttys are now messed. I reboot, ttys are working fine. startx with openbox the keyboard is fine.
I startx gnome, the keyboard get messy again. Going to ttys doesn't help, just like before.
The first time it happened I rm -r ~/.gconf*  ~/.gnome*  ~/.nautilus and ~/.config/compiz/ and startx gnome the
problem just goes away. Both times it happened it was not after an upgrade or anything like that.
Well, I thought it was a gnome related problem.
Afterwards, I had already spent about two hours in lxde. The same darn thing again.
I looked in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi and it was fine.
How come the problem to happen in gnome, going back to ttys the keyboard is messed, rebooting the ttys are fine
but starting X (keyboard messy) and going back to tty right away the keyboard is now messy, when two seconds ago
it wasn't ?
What else could I investigate besides the keyboard layout in gnome, and 10-keymap.fdi file ?
Last edited by Athunye (2010-06-11 19:29:19)

Answer 1

I'm guessing this is on a laptop.  hit your num-lock key.
on laptops, since there is no 10-key pad, the 10-key is mapped to normal keyboard keys.
U=4
I=5
O=6
P=*
J=4
K=5
L=6 etc. 
if your number lock is on, then your keyboard will be "messy"
Last edited by Cyrusm (2010-06-11 14:11:32)