Score:0

Neither Alt key working in Ubuntu 20.04

cz flag

This has been an issue for a while but I've been able to ignore it by using an external keyboard for my laptop (Dell G3 15). I'm now working away from home and it's becoming unbearable not having access to the various shortcuts using the left Alt key.

I've tried testing with xev and neither key registers anything in the log.

Is there anything else I can try? I've searched around a bit and I couldn't find anything that matches my problem, people seem to have issues mainly with the right AltGr key, related to composing characters, instead my problem applies to both keys.

I'm using UKX language (UK English keyboard with extended functionality, including "backtick followed by character" gives the character a grave accent [works] and "AltGr + character" should give the character an accute accent [does not work]).

EDIT: as suggested in a comment, I've tried gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options, which returns ['compose:ralt'].

Gunnar Hjalmarsson avatar
uz flag
To begin with, let's check if any XKB options are enabled which may cause it. Please edit your question and show us the output of this command: `gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options`
vanadium avatar
cn flag
Perhaps indeed try removing the option by issuing `gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options` or `gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources xkb-options '[]'`. In principle, that setting only affect the right Alt key. If resetting the option does not solve the issue, then I expect a faulty keyboard.
cz flag
Resetting didn't seem to achieve anything, unfortunately. Is there any way to diagnose if the issue is at a hardware level, and what one could do in that case?
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