Comment 23 for bug 460328

Taking notes for myself, please ignore.

I tested this in more detail, and gsd always sets the current default layout to what is in $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT, so this is already working correctly.

Simple check which avoids logging out/in:

gconftool --type list --list-type string -s /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd/layouts '[us,de]'
GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT=gb gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon

-> I get "GBr" as default layout consistently, which is correct (g-s-d has code to match that).

So what we actually need now is one of those:

 - not override the system default if the user doesn't pick anything different in gdm; i. e. consider an empty list in gconf as a valid long-term configuration
 - passing the entire list of system defaults in $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT, with the one selected being first

The first seems easier to implement indeed.

Sorry for all the back and forth, it took me a while to test all the scenarios, read the code, and understand how things should work.