Ubuntu

Pressing shift 2 in Ubuntu gives me " not @

Asked by George Murphy

I installed Ubuntu 7.10, with Windows XP, it works fine but there are a few keys that give me an inappropriate response; pressing the SHIFT 2 gives me ", pressing the ? key give me an E with a mark on top, pressing the ^ key gives me a > sign, most of the other number keys seem to be all right. I wanted to use Evolution but I can't put in my e-mail address as I need ethe @ sign. Thank You
George M.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
Nathan Haines
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Best Nathan Haines (nhaines) said : 		#1

This seems to indicate that X is using a bit-shifted keyboard mapping. If you're interested in history it might be interesting to you that Shift-2 was once used for " because that was the character resulting from the simplest electrical implementation of the shift key. But the important thing today is that your settings are wrong. This is probably due to a bug in the installation program and not due to anything you did.

The good news, however, is that it's very simple to fix. Go through the menus to run System > Preferences > Keyboard. From there, click on the "Layouts" tab. Click "Add" and pick your region and keyboard layout (don't worry if the keyboard layout image doesn't update). Save that, and remove the old layout that wasn't working. Now your keyboard should work the way you expect.

Revision history for this message
George Murphy (gmmurphy) said : 		#2

Thanks Nathan Haines, that solved my question.

Revision history for this message
George Murphy (gmmurphy) said : 		#3

Thanks a bunch Nathan. I actually had Canada selected for the layout but changed it to English U.S. and there were about 6 changes in the keyboard immediately. Interesting.

Revision history for this message
Nathan Haines (nhaines) said : 		#4

I'm glad that helped! You might want to select Canada again, and see if the problem persists. If it does, consider filing a bug against Ubiquity (the Ubuntu Desktop CD installer).

Thank you for your interest in Ubuntu. I'm sorry you ran into this problem and I hope the rest of your experience is enjoyable and productive!

Revision history for this message
George Murphy (gmmurphy) said : 		#5

I reinstalled the Canada keybord and the problem reappeared. I did send a bug report. Thank you.