Latest Manjaro breaks Keyboard Case (Again)?

[hollerpots]

Hi, fellow user @Hook and I are getting flustered with the state of the keyboard case driver in Manjaro/Phosh. Looks like Mobian is having trouble too. I've commented in a few other places, including in the Manjaro forum, and it seems like we might be the only ones.

- Previous big update renamed the kb151 driver, effectively borking it. We used the userspace driver instead, which worked as expected.

- A week or so ago, the next big update seemed to restore the kernel driver BUT:
  - The current kernel driver is missing the punctuation accessible with fn-shift-# (including - and +)
  - Something is preventing the userspace driver from loading, even after disabling the renamed pinephone-keyboard module. So we end up with no keyboard.

Does anyone know what's going on? These are starting to feel like Windows updates 

Another oddity - with the latest update, not all USB keyboards (connected to the Pinephone USB-C as a workaround) work anymore. I'm wondering if there is some defiant engineer out there determined to get us using the virtual keyboard.

This is so close to being the perfect pocket PC!

[graphicpanda444]

Hi, fellow user @Hook and I are getting flustered with the state of the keyboard case driver in Manjaro/Phosh. Looks like Mobian is having trouble too. I've commented in a few other places, including in the Manjaro forum, and it seems like we might be the only ones.

- Previous big update renamed the kb151 driver, effectively borking it. We used the userspace driver instead, which worked as expected.

- A week or so ago, the next big update seemed to restore the kernel driver BUT:
  - The current kernel driver is missing the punctuation accessible with fn-shift-# (including - and +)
  - Something is preventing the userspace driver from loading, even after disabling the renamed pinephone-keyboard module. So we end up with no keyboard.

Does anyone know what's going on? These are starting to feel like Windows updates 

Another oddity - with the latest update, not all USB keyboards (connected to the Pinephone USB-C as a workaround) work anymore. I'm wondering if there is some defiant engineer out there determined to get us using the virtual keyboard.

This is so close to being the perfect pocket PC!

I followed this post on Reddit, and got the top row to work:

I had the same problem with the PinePhone Keyboards upper row extra symbols (+-_=~) not working using (danctnix) Arch with Plasma-Mobile and it took me a while to fix it since every guide I found so far was about phosh. That's why I am posting my solution here, hope it helps somebody.

1. copy xkb/rules and xkb/symbols from https://codeberg.org/HazardChem/PinePhone_Keyboard into
   
   Code:

   /usr/share/X11/xkb
2. Put
   
   Code:

   export XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=ppkb
   in
   
   Code:

   sudoedit /etc/profile.d/ppkb
   and
   
   Code:

   sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/ppkb
3. Install
   
   Code:

   plasma-desktop
   package, which gives you the keyboard settings menu which is missing from plasma-mobile
   
4. Open the settings via gui or
   
   Code:

   plasma-open-settings kcm_keyboard
   , go to Advanced and search for something like "Key for switching into third keyboard layer" (my settings are in german, so it's probably a litte different) and select your preferred modifier key, like super or some alt key
   
5. You probably need to reboot for the environment variable to be set, and after that it should work
   

It might also work if you skip 2.) and then set the the keyboard layout in the plasma-desktop keyboard settings menu, but I dont know since I used the method described above.Also, I think the

Code:

/usr/share/X11/xkb

directory is owned by

Code:

xkeyboard-config

package, so you might need to repeat this when it updates (or tell pacman not to update this package)

[hollerpots]

Hi, @graphicpanda444 thanks a ton for this info! I wanted to try it before replying but work got busy. Hope to get to it today, but wanted to show my appreciation.

[prestelpirate]

Hi, fellow user @Hook and I are getting flustered with the state of the keyboard case driver in Manjaro/Phosh. Looks like Mobian is having trouble too. I've commented in a few other places, including in the Manjaro forum, and it seems like we might be the only ones.

I'm having the same issues as well. Updates randomly break the keyboard - it's not even recongised - and I too can't get the userspace driver to load correctly.

A full reflash of the OS works fine - until there's another update, at which point the keyboard stops working again.

[hollerpots]

Hi, fellow user @Hook and I are getting flustered with the state of the keyboard case driver in Manjaro/Phosh. Looks like Mobian is having trouble too. I've commented in a few other places, including in the Manjaro forum, and it seems like we might be the only ones.

I'm having the same issues as well. Updates randomly break the keyboard - it's not even recongised - and I too can't get the userspace driver to load correctly.

A full reflash of the OS works fine - until there's another update, at which point the keyboard stops working again.

Yeah, to circle back, I tried the steps linked from Reddit, including installing the plasma-desktop package. Unfortunately, it looks like it's making assumptions about my US locale, and doesn't give me an option for AltG with the Pinephone Keyboard layout. AltG usually isn't on US keyboards, sure, but this is a worldly keyboard, why would the layout remove it? Using other keys for the "3rd combo" trigger was unsuccessful.

I love Manjaro (and Arch of course), but I'm honestly looking around to see if there are any other distros more diligently focusing on Pinephone + Keyboard. Mobian seems to have the same pain. I get it, it's a beta device, but the repeat breaking updates is really turning a few of us off from what could be an awesome mini-Linux PDA. I'll poke at it a little more and report back.