Equivalent to gnome-tweaks (keyboard settings)?

[Moonbase59]

Hi, Manjaro newbie here. I’m planning to switch to Manjaro XFCE (from Linux Mint 20.3/Cinnamon) and installed it on one of my laptops, in order to get familiar with it.

I got everything working so far, BUT I need my keyboard settings and cannot find how to set it. I usually have:

• German (Germany, dead tilde) keyboard [works]
• Compose on CapsLock [works]
• My own .XCompose file [works]
• Non-breaking space on 2nd level space (Shift+Space) [how?]
• NumPad: Unicode extensions (arrows & math symbols) on standard level [how?]

The last two I usually set using gnome-tweaks/Keyboard but apparently gnome-tweaks doesn’t work on XFCE:

$ gnome-tweaks
WARNING : Error getting shell mode
CRITICAL: Error getting shell version
WARNING : Shell not installed or running
WARNING : Error loading desktopfile: /home/martin/.config/autostart/xfconf-migration-4.6.desktop
WARNING : Error loading desktopfile: /home/martin/.config/autostart/xfce4-clipman-plugin-autostart.desktop
WARNING : Error loading desktopfile: /home/martin/.config/autostart/onboard-autostart.desktop
WARNING : Error loading desktopfile: /home/martin/.config/autostart/xfce4-settings-helper-autostart.desktop
WARNING : Error loading desktopfile: /home/martin/.config/autostart/xfce4-tips-autostart.desktop
WARNING : Shell not running
NoneType: None

• Is there an alternative to gnome-tweaks?
• Or how can I reach these settings (and possible other keyboard tweaks)?

Thanks for helping!

[Moonbase59]

Ok, so I did some research and found a (non-GUI) solution. One question still remains:

• Is there a keyboard settings GUI component in XFCE like gnome-tweaks?

---

Here is my manual solution, for others to follow:

• Did a setxkbmap -print -verbose 10 on my Mint system, to check what kbd model/layout/variant/options were used.

• Checked /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf on Manjaro and read a comment that this shouldn’t necessarily be edited manually. This file did of course not contain my settings.

• Used localectl set-x11-keymap de pc105 deadtilde terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp,compose:caps,keypad:future,nbsp:level2 to set my options taken from the other system.

• Restarted the X server (well, actually my whole system) and verified:

  • Settings are in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf now,
  • Keyboard works as expected now.

For easier verification also wrote a bash 3-liner to display the current keyboard:

#! /bin/bash
# Show current keyboard layout
layout=`setxkbmap -query | grep layout | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f2`
variant=`setxkbmap -query | grep variant | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f2`
gkbd-keyboard-display -l ${layout}$'\t'${variant}

(because I didn’t find that function in keyboard settings)

Sadly, I couldn’t attach a screenshot (forum states: »Entschuldige, du kannst keine Medienelemente in einen Beitrag einbetten.«). Can I switch the forum to English?

[Nachlese]

@Moonbase59

Can I switch the forum to English?

probably
Your icon top right.
The person icon in the rightmost tab
Preferences (Einstellungen)
Interface (ganz unten, links)

Ich kann zwar deutsch, hab das Forum aber auf english gestellt
kenne also die genauen deutschen Begriffe die hierfür verwendet werden nicht.

Ich werd es jetzt nicht extra umstellen - Du machst das schon

[Yochanan]

Since you’re coming from Linux Mint, I suggest our Manjaro Cinnamon or maybe even the MATE edition.

As you already figured out, GNOME Tweaks will not work on anything other than…

…wait for it…

…it’s coming along now…

…here it comes…

GNOME.

P.S. If you do try out / install one of our community editions, please let us know if you find anything awry or have any suggestions in our #site-feedback section of the forum.

[Moonbase59]

Thanks for chiming in, @Yochanan! Believe me, I was tempted to use the Cinnamon edition.

Then again, even at 62 years of age, it never hurts to learn some new tricks. The main reasons I finally opted to try Manjaro XFCE first were

• I love the concept of unstable/testing/stable a rolling release, thus reducing the chance of breaks and still getting the latest software,
• my testing machine is a 12-year-old laptop (thus XFCE),
• and I like trying out the “preferred” edition of a distro first.

And guess what: Seems I get it working and it performs rather well on the old laptop. Looks like I might switch some of my better hardware, too.

Thanks again.