Problems with Kernel 2.6.31 and keyboard layout

Question

Hello!
After upgrading my system with pacman -Syu I had lots of trouble!
1. New gdm ignores my fluxbox windowmanager! After severall reboots it worked suddenly: Don't know why!
I urgently missed  gdmsetup!
2 xorg ignores my keyboard settings! I configured xorg.conf and /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keyboard.fdi. But no effect!
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <!-- -*- SGML -*- -->
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
<device>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keymap">
<append key="info.callouts.add" type="strlist">hal-setup-keymap</append>
</match>
<match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
<merge key="input.xkb.rules" type="string">base</merge>
<!-- If we're using Linux, we use evdev by default (falling back to
keyboard otherwise). -->
<merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">keyboard</merge>
<match key="/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer:system.kernel.name"
string="Linux">
<merge key="input.xkb.model" type="string">evdev</merge>
</match>
<merge key="input.xkb.layout" type="string">de</merge>
<merge key="input.xkb.variant" type="string">nodeadkeys</merge>
<merge key="input.xkb.options" type="string">terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp</merge>
</match>
</device>
</deviceinfo>
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "X.org Configured"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection
Section "Files"
ModulePath "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/misc"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/TTF"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/local"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/util"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/OTF"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbVariant" "nodeadkeys"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
# Device "Card0"
# Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Though "setxbdmap de" was working I downgraded to the previous kernel and gdm version!
I think testing cycle for new versions is definitely to short, or did I make serious faults!
Greetings Johannes

Answer 1

I sort of had this problem for a while in a rescue usb drive I have, I couldn't make it work properly, but as root all was well (xfce was also acting a little strange as a user).
I just renamed the user home, deleted the user and created a new account, all fresh, just copied back some configs (firefox and the likes) and all was working well again ... no idea of what happened. I don't use a login manager, I just start xfce manually (it's a rescue drive I want to be able to change xorg.conf before starting X if needed).