Keyboard stays in English (QWERTY) despite system language set to French (AZERTY)

[Chevalerie42]

Batocera build version

42

Your architecture

RPI 4

Your Graphic Processor Unit(s) (GPU)

integrated

Issue description

Hello,

I am using a Raspberry Pi 4 with a fresh Batocera installation.
Being located in France, I set the system language to French.
In France, we use an AZERTY keyboard layout.
Unfortunately, Batocera's system settings do not apply and the keyboard remains in QWERTY.

I correctly edited the configuration file /userdata/system/batocera.conf :

system.language=fr_FR
system.kblayout=fr
system.kbvariant=azerty
system.timezone=Europe/Paris

After extensive research, I noticed that the file /etc/sway/config contains the following variable:

Set keyboard layout based on environment variables set (default US)

input * {
    xkb_layout $XKB_LAYOUT
    xkb_variant $XKB_VARIANT
}

I traced the $XKB_LAYOUT reference to the file /etc/init.d/S26system :

ba_keyboard_lang() {
    settings_lang="$(/usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.language || echo 'en_US')"
    settings_kb="$(/usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.kblayout || echo 'us')"
    settings_kb_variant="$(/usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.kbvariant || echo '')"
    if [ "$settings_kb" != "" ]; then
        loadkeys "$settings_kb" >> $log
    else
        keyboardmap=$(echo "$settings_lang" | cut -c1-2)
        if [ "$keyboardmap" != "" ]; then
            loadkeys "$keyboardmap" >> $log
        fi
    fi
    # Export variables for graphical sessions (Sway, Xorg)
    export XKB_LAYOUT="$settings_kb_layout"
    export XKB_VARIANT="$settings_kb_variant"
}

Two important observations:

1. The command /usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.kblayout correctly returns "fr" on my system.
2. The layout value is stored in $settings_kb but XKB_LAYOUT is incorrectly assigned from $settings_kb_layout (note the extra "_layout" suffix) which does not exist and is always empty.

Note: even after removing the "_layout" suffix directly from the overlay partition, I did not see any improvement

We can confirm the keyboard is stuck in English:

WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1 swaymsg -t get_inputs | grep -A5 "keyboard|Keyboard"

Returns:

    "type": "keyboard",
    "repeat_delay": 600,
    "repeat_rate": 25,
    "xkb_layout_names": [
      "English (US)"
    ],
[ REDACTED ]

I executed the following commands as root (reproducible workaround):

LAYOUT=$(/usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.kblayout)
VARIANT=$(/usr/bin/batocera-settings-get system.kbvariant)
mount -o remount,rw /boot
printf '#!/bin/bash\nsed -i "s/xkb_layout \\$XKB_LAYOUT/xkb_layout %s/" /etc/sway/config\nsed -i "s/xkb_variant \\$XKB_VARIANT/xkb_variant %s/" /etc/sway/config\n' "$LAYOUT" "$VARIANT" > /boot/boot-custom.sh
chmod +x /boot/boot-custom.sh
reboot

After reboot, the keyboard is now correctly set to the system language:

WAYLAND_DISPLAY=wayland-1 swaymsg -t get_inputs | grep -A5 "keyboard|Keyboard"

Returns:

    "type": "keyboard",
    "repeat_delay": 600,
    "repeat_rate": 25,
    "xkb_layout_names": [
      "French (AZERTY)"
    ],
[ REDACTED ] 

I hope this can help. Thank you for the great work on Batocera !

Best regards,

Chevalerie

Detailed reproduction steps

1. Installe batocera
2. change language to french
3. test keymap AZERTY = QWERTY

Details of any attempts to fix this yourself

No response

Details of any modifications you have made to Batocera.

Logs and data

[crcerror]

Seems fixed in v43

[mirko93s]

I still have this issue with v43.1
Setting Italian layout in system settings but I still get US layout.