English menus, but German keyboard setting

every time I start my computer up, the English keyboard setting is active, and I have to change back to the German (Switzerland) one.

I want to keep my Computer as English as possible (e.g. English menus), but with a permanently active German (Swiss) keyboard setting.

How can I do that?

2 Answers

It is probably bug or (Ubuntu 13.10, 14.04 and 14.10 seems plagued by a series of multi-layout keyboard bugs. See also which is one of the hottest bugs in launchpad).

There are a couple of workarounds that seem to work; at least they work for me. Basically you issue from a terminal

gsettings set org.freedesktop.ibus.general use-system-keyboard-layout false
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.input-sources current 0

and then disable IBus in Settings -> Language support:

It works for me, although you loose some function (for example, ctrl+shif+u unicode direct input).

Access the Dash, search for an application named "Text Entry" and start it up. In it you will be presented with a selection box entitled "Input sources to use:"; it lists all the keyboard mappings presently available in your system. In your case it is probably listing English and German (Switzerland).

You can turn the German mapping the default in two ways:

1. using the "arrow up" button to move the German mapping to the top.

2. using the "minus" button to remove all mappings except German.

These buttons are signalled in the image below.