If you go to System->Preferences->Hardware->Keyboard, click the "Layouts" tab, click the "Layout Options..." button, and in the resulting window, expand "Third level choosers", there are (among others) two options in the list: Press Right Alt key to choose 3rd level. Press Right Alt key to choose 3rd level, Shift+Right Alt key is Multi_Key. Under Fedora 8, the second option (the Multi_Key option) works; if this is selected, I can use Shift+Right Alt to enter a wide variety of characters. Under Fedora 9 (Rawhide), Shift+Right Alt does not function as Multi_Key. This is with xorg-x11-drv-keyboard-1.2.2-3.fc9.i386.
Works fine here, with a US layout.
Hmmm. If I create a new user account, login to that account, run X, and enable Multi_Key handling, it works properly. If I logout of the new account, login to my "real" account, and start X, the Multi_Key still doesn't work. So, this is actually a slightly different bug: leftover cruft from previous versions of GNOME is breaking functionality of the current version. All such "cruft issues" should be handled the first time a newer version of GNOME launches, yes?
Not sure that there's a cruft issue here. The account I am testing this on has been upgraded from at least gnome 2.10
The account I'm trying to use has been upgraded from at least GNOME 1.2. Given that it doesn't work, but a new account does, I'm reasonably confident that this is a cruft issue.
Ok, I think I might have a better clue as to what's going on here... I rsync'ed most of my GNOME dotdirs (~/.gnome2, ~/.gconfd, et. al.) to another system (running F8) for testing. When I started X in that system, before anything else came up, I received a dialog box telling me that my X keyboard map and my GNOME keyboard map differed, and asking me which one I wanted to use. I wasn't sure, so I clicked the "use X keyboard map" button. Now, the options under "Third level choosers" have no effect, just like the Rawhide system. I think I chose poorly; I think the reason why the Third level choosers aren't working is because I'm using the X keyboard map, not the GNOME keyboard map. To undo what I've done, I'm going to try rsync'ing my GNOME dotfiles from yet another system (where the Third level chooser options work). In the meantime, though, how do I get back that dialog box so that I can choose to use the GNOME keyboard map, instead of the X keyboard map?
gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/disable_xmm_and_xkb_warning --type bool false
Changing version to '9' as part of upcoming Fedora 9 GA. More information and reason for this action is here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
Well, I finally managed to track down the cause of this problem, and it's actually a lot worse than a simple cruft issue; there's some very bad breakage going on here. Here's how to reproduce it under Fedora 9. Create a test user account and login to it. Create an ~/.Xclients file for the test account with mode 0755 and the following contents: if [ "x${TMPDIR}" = x ]; then TMPDIR=`mktemp -d -t` export TMPDIR fi exec /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients Log out of the test account and log back in. Multi_Key no longer works. The fundamental problem here appears to be that some portions of the GNOME code base hardcode /tmp as the location for all temporary files and directories (including the directories that hold sockets used for communication), but other portions of the code base obey $TMPDIR if it is set. You can see this with the test above. After creating the ~/.Xclients file, logging out, and logging back in, you will find gconfd-${USER} and orbit-${USER} directories in *both* /tmp and ${TMPDIR}. I would argue that from a security standpoint, obeying $TMPDIR is the correct behavior. (This is true for everything, not just GNOME. I would also argue that Fedora should set $TMPDIR (via mktemp) in /etc/profile and /etc/csh.login, but that's another battle.) It would also appear that GNOME is in the process of transitioning from the "just put it in /tmp" behavior to the "obey $TMPDIR if set" behavior, which (IMHO) is a Good Thing. But regardless, all parts of GNOME must be uniform in the decision to either ignore or obey $TMPDIR, because a lack of uniformity causes breakage. The Multi_Key breakage appeared between F8 and F9, but I'd bet money that things other than just Multi_Key are broken if $TMPDIR is set, and that I just haven't noticed them because I'm not a GNOME developer. I've updated the Summary appropriately; please adjust the Severity/Priority and reassign to the appropriate Component.
Except that exporting the TMPDIR at that time is probably too late, so you'd end up with 2 GConf running because one ran after it couldn't find the other. You can probably verify that by checking the output of: cat /proc/`pidof gconfd-2`/environ Reassigning to GConf, might be an orbit bug though.
This message is a reminder that Fedora 9 is nearing its end of life. Approximately 30 (thirty) days from now Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 9. It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as WONTFIX if it remains open with a Fedora 'version' of '9'. Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version prior to Fedora 9's end of life. Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we may not be able to fix it before Fedora 9 is end of life. If you would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version of Fedora please change the 'version' of this bug to the applicable version. If you are unable to change the version, please add a comment here and someone will do it for you. Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes bugs or makes them obsolete. The process we are following is described here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping
Fedora 9 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2009-07-10. Fedora 9 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.