Hi I need help with my laptop with debian 13 and KDE plasma, basically there is some problem with the keyboard where some keys sometimes act as 'right click'??? the ones i found are z x c v, m and enter key, im not sure if this is the physical keyboard issue or something within linux, but i would like to see like keybinds or something if that makes sense, i tried using just the settings keyboard stuff but idk couldnt find anything which could help, though i also found out caps lock isnt working at all, and google only came up with some like commands to bind keys
#Debian on Lenovo thinkpad keyboard help
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Which laptop?
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it is a Lenovo Thinkpad T430
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Oh, so 2012 vintage?
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yes
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Do you have an external usb or bluetooth keyboard you could test?
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ooh yes
ill do that now
okay it appears to be okay
so i guess the laptops keyboard is broken
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Aww... that's a shame. I've been using KDE for many years, and couldn't think of a setting which could do that. :/
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aw ok, well thank you for your help anyways
but if youve been using KDE for a while, can you tell me some cool features about it? like i just learnt i can make a system util widget from the system monitor thats sick
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Lat to the party as this seems solved, but you can also run xev in a terminal and then press the keys to see what the X server interprets it as. Seems like a broken keyboard as it works with an external, but the behaviour still seems really weird.
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but if youve been using KDE for a while, can you tell me some cool features abou...
KDE has just so many options, it'll probably take years before you've poked them all and found a setup that suits you. Almost everything about the UI can be altered in some way. Enjoy the journey. 🙂
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Lat to the party as this seems solved, but you can also run xev in a terminal an...
I was thinking perhaps the keyboard has been rubbing on the trackpad cabling, and triggers an r-click? Just guessing, but it is really weird!
oblique venture
I was thinking perhaps the keyboard has been rubbing on the trackpad cabling, an...
Sounds plausible. Quick Google found though that at least one other guy has experienced the same problem, and he claimed that it happened sometimes with external keyboards as well, but much less.
This just feels weird to be a hardware issue, but absolutely not impossible.
Easiest way forward is still as suggested. Use an external keyboard and revisit the problem if it persists.
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KDE has just so many options, it'll probably take years before you've poked them...
awesome thank you
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Lat to the party as this seems solved, but you can also run xev in a terminal an...
oo i will try it thank you
yeah its really wierd because it only happens sometimes, like not every time I click the z key or something but it definitely is very annoying
also common when fast typing that it right clicks and then highlights what I written and before I realise it I press another key and the text before is removed haha
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Annoying is too kind a word, I would have probably thrown the computer at the third occurrence lol.
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lmao
at first I thought maybe i was accidentally pressing right click on the track pad or something but that definitely isn't it
oblique venture
Small note, xev is what the X server interprets, strictly not what the "computer" gets as input. Most of the time it's the same, so no need to worry about it in this case, but still good to know.
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okayy im trying it rn
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And I just realised I'm stupid. Don't know if you use X or Wayland. But I'm sure there's an equivalent command for Wayland if that's what you're using.
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honestly im not sure what either of these things are
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I think Debian 13 ships KDE with wayland as default.
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i have KDE plasma if thats what you mean
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wev is the wayland equivalent.
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i installed it later, with debian i installed the basic GNOME
yeah wev isnt found in terminal
in xev everything looked fine i think
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also now im typing a lot and the problem seems to have disappeared atleast for now
for me it says X11
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X11 is the older windowing system, which is being replaced by wayland.
You can switch on the login screen, or change which it uses as default in the settings.
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oh i see okay
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also i have a question when booting my laptop all the code is on the screen and stuff and at one point there is a terminal with 1 line that says something like 'Couldnt parse dbe (-74), but then it boots fine it disappears after a couple seconds but im just wondering what is that?
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Hard to say without a photo.
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Did you disable Secure Boot in the BIOS?
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also is there any way to check if the lenovo specific volume keys work? as in if they give any signal to check if its a hardware issue or linux issue
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Did you disable Secure Boot in the BIOS?
honestly did not go into the bios at any point
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From the search results for that error I've read, it's fairly harmless and you can ignore it. It might go away if you disable Secure Boot, if it isn't already.
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ooh okay thanks
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also is there any way to check if the lenovo specific volume keys work? as in if...
because in xev it doesnt do anything so idk
like doesnt return that its being pressed
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Special keys (afaik) don't act like regular keys, so usually they are either supported or not. There's an article on the Gentoo Wiki (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/ACPI/ThinkPad-special-buttons), but it probably won't help you much.
