autologin defaults to US layout

Can you please copy&paste theoutput of those commands:

  grep ^X /etc/default/console-setup
  gconftool -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd

?

oh, and

  echo $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT

as well, please.

This could be a bug in the installer (not setting correct console-setup), gdm (not setting $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT correctly), or gnome-settings-daemon (setting the wrong default layout).

I had to to a reinstall, since I had "fixed" the problem in the meantime :/

Anyway, after reinstalling, here are the results I get:

$ grep ^X /etc/default/console-setup
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="gb"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTINOS=""

$ gconftool -R /desktop/gnome/peripherals/keyboard/kbd
 layouts = [us]
 options = []
 model =

$ echo $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT
us

$ echo $LANG
en_GB.UTF-8

> $ echo $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT
> us

That would be the problem then. Did you select "US" layout in the login manager? If you choose British layout in the keyboard selector, do things work then?

Can you please remove /var/cache/gdm/yourusername/dmrc and ~/.dmrc and check that gdm defaults to British layout?

This is using auto-login. I didn't select anything explicitly, so I was expecting the system default to be used.

Maybe there is something wrong with the initial user's preferences are initialised during installation?

I currently have a reinstall under way; I'll try to answer the other points when that's done.

When logging in explicitly though GDM on the first boot after installation, the keyboard layout option at the login screen defaults correctly to UK, and I get UK keyboard layout after login.

If I then restart gdm so that auto-login happens again, I get UK layout in the desktop session again, so it looks like once the setting is established, it persists.

If I remove /var/cache/gdm/yourusername/dmrc and ~/.dmrc, then auto-login again, the layout is US once more. No ~.dmrc appears to be created.

I've got the similar problem with Russian locale. I can't change keyboard layout from "us" to "ru". GDM set it to "us" only

$ grep ^X /etc/default/console-setup
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us,ru"
XKBVARIANT=","
XKBOPTIONS="grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll"

$ echo $GDM_KEYBOARD_LAYOUT
us

Everything works fine then using xdm, kdm or just startx. Removing .dmrc doesn't help.
Distribution: Xubuntu 9.10

Vlad, your problem is discussed in bug 460328.

Dave, thanks for the results. It shows that gdm defaults to the wrong layout. Can you please submit the output of

  grep ^X /etc/default/console-setup

for your session, too?

$ grep ^X /etc/default/console-setup

XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="gb"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""

This does not ever seem to change, even when the bug occurs and US keyboard layout is used.

Basically, the bug seems to persist from installation until the default user logs in explicitly (not using gdm auto-login) or sets the keyboard layout explicitly.

If I destroy and manually recreate the default user by copying /etc/default/skel and deleting /var/cache/gdm/<user>, the problem does not seem to recur. Maybe it is the way the default user account is configured during installation which is causing the problem.