Thanks Alexander > > try removing /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb.old-1 and recreate the link > ln -sf /etc/X11/xkb /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb
ok. that maybe happened because of an aborted installation or so. I did that, restarted the X server, and now it recognises my keyboard without having to explicitly specify a layout. Great! thanks a lot. Kris PS: Note that I still cannot do " setxkbmap uk" as I get: Error loading new keyboard description I tried to reinstall all of the xorg packages I had installed, but the behaviour remains the same. I then checked /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/rules/xorg.lst, and it indeed doesn't have a uk layout, but it does have a gb one! So, I really should have been using "gb", which works fine.