Originally posted by: Felecha
Verrrry inteeresting indeed. I'm logged in assss a different userrr now (see the multiple keyboard chhhhhaaaaracccctttteeeerss? that's still happening)
TTTtthe File Bbrowseeer is wwwwwwwoooorking ok.
WWWwweiiird stuff....
Yes.. this is getting very bizzare. :/
I am thinking that it's a problem with X windows for this keyboard thing.
Each time you press a key it sends 2 signals to the computer.. one for the keypress, and one for the release. Maybe it is not getting the 'release' or misinterpreting it?
Things I'd try first are the easiest stuff... then work to hardest.
You can confirm it's a problem with X by switching to the virtual console (the command line, to do that you go ctrl-alt-F1, then ctrl-alt-F7 (or sometimes F8 or other F buttons) to get back into X, although I think you know how to do that already) and see if the repeating button problem comes up there.
If it doesn't appear then it's a problem with X most likely.
If you have another keyboard I'd try that, especially if it wireless or something like that.
If ti's one of those USB ones that can use a PS/2 adapter I'd try that (or visa versa). (you may have to switch to the console and back to X to make it pick it up, or maybe log out and restart the graphical login stuff with ctrl-alt-backspace)
See if that makes it go away. If it's a problem with the keyboard then it would suck to spend so much time with the software.
You can find your keyboard preference configuration tool in the gnome menu, but I am not certain were exactly. Look for keyboard preferences in stuff like 'desktop' or preferences menu or something like that. Muck around with that and see if it makes a difference.
Otherwise this sort of thing can be caused by a misconfiguration for X. In your configuration file make sure that you have only one entry for keyboard controls, if you have 2 then it may think that you have 2 keyboards and is thinking that everytime you press your key then your pressing it twice. But it doesn't look like this is the problem.
I think that this a problem with Gnome and not nessicarially with X or with your system. Just a guess since it works ok now for one user, but wonky for your new guy.
Maybe try booting up with a knoppix CD and see if you have the same problems. If it's a problem in Fedora and not with Knoppix, then it's usually a Fedora buggy software issue.
So whereeee do I find nauttttilus preferrrrreeeences?
Nautilus and all applications store preferences in your home directory.
Linux security model is such that the only folders your generally allowed to access by default is your /home/username/ folder and the /tmp folder.
Preferences are stored in .filename and .directory names in your home directory. The period before the name makes them 'hidden', so normally your shell ignores displaying them when you do file stuff, but you can see them by going to your home directory and typing ls -a.
some more background:
Also ~/ is shortcut that equals your user's home directory so you don't have to type it out all the time and you can use it for scripts. On top of that your shell can use wildcards, one wild card is the question mark: ? Another is the asterix *.
? means this character can be substituted with any _single_ number or character.
Like if you have 2 files named cat, cap, and cad you can go:
ls -l ca?
and it will display all 3 files.
The other one is * and that means 'this can be anything, and any number of items'.
/end of background.
Now going thru all these . files are tedious and all that nautilus stuff is mixed up with a bunch of other gnome stuff. So the easy way to reset nautilus (and everything else) is to move or delete the preferences out of the way so that new ones can be generated automaticly.
You do this whenever you run into problems like this or when you do big big upgrades (since newer programs may not be backward compatable with old versions, and with this big upgrade I am talking about is like going from Fedora Core 2 to FC 4 or whatnot) or just want to 'clean house'.
ALWAYS though if you have email or want to save browser settings or whatnot then back those up so that you can have them and import them back into their programs. For firefox there is a bookmarks.html file you can find in the preferences and copy to safety.
To do that with gnome you have to log out, and wait for all the gnome-related background stuff to die or stop. This takes a couple minutes after logging out and they do things like record your last settings and such for the next time you start up. If you move the preferences before they are off then they may try to remake some of them.
So log out, switch to console, and wait a bit, then log into the console.
check to see if you have any gnome related stuff running.
you can do that easily by going:
ps aux | grep <your username>
If there is anything gnome-related still running go:
killall < program name >
or
kill < pid number >
Whichever is easiest, The PID number is the proccess identification number and it displayed on the second column when you do 'ps aux'.
If programs are stubborn you can do a 'serious kill' by going:
kill -9 < pid number >
If they don't die by that time, wait and try the kill -9 a couple times, then after that you can safely ignore them. Usually they just turn to zombies at that point and don't do anything.
This is also very good for stubborn programs that freeze or behave badly. Like with mplayer, it works fine, but when I shut it down it still has a instance running in the background sometimes that I have to kill manually. Irritating.
Also if you don't want to do all that crap, you can simply reboot the computer and not log in as that user, which is the easiest way by far.
After you reboot or have made sure that gnome is shut all the way off.
Then, the actual thing I've been building up to, you go:
cd ~/
mkdir old.stuff
mv .??* old.stuff/
(the .??* makes sure that you avoid the . and .. files that are special)
And that is it. All the preferences have been moved out of the way and your user account will generate everything over again fresh when you log in again. Everything will get cleared out.
Oh, and also before you log in go to /tmp and make sure that there are not any stale files around for your user. Go ahead and "rm -r /tmp/*" and "rm -r /tmp/.??*" if you want, just be carefull every time you use rm because there is no undelete... _ever_. If your not sure always copy the files to a safe place before you delete them so that you can recover them from this safe place (which you can clear out later if everything works out ok.) If your nervious about using rm then use 'rm -i' so that it asks you before deleting (I think that fedora does this by default with a alias). If you are sure of yourself then 'rm -f' is the oppisite.
If that doesn't solve it or some change you made you need to get back then you can do..
mv ~/old.stuff/.??* ~/
It's pretty simple, but it's kinda complicated at the same time.
At this point if mucking around with Fedora Core some more doesn't fix it, then I'd say just try something else. Ubuntu is fine.
