Stuck on a non-qwerty keyboard layout despite changing to qwerty (Linux, proton)

[amenooto]

I use the Dvorak Programmer keyboard layout and upon loading into a game for the first time, I realize that the keyboard layout didn't automatically switch to qwerty for just this application, unlike in most other Steam games. So I change my keyboard layout to qwerty, and it's still stuck on Dvorak for just this application, which is very strange. I restarted the game, then Steam, and the game is still stuck on the Dvorak keyboard layout, despite being in qwerty. All other applications on my desktop are being typed in qwerty. It's almost as though the game or Proton (or something in between) remembers the keyboard layout that I used the first time when running the game, and won't update... I've yet to try restarting my system or reinstalling the game, so I'll update on that later, but restarting my system probably wont fix it (but reinstalling the game very likely will I think).

I am running Linux (Guix System), Wayland (Xwayland for Steam), Proton experimental.

 

[ArchLinuxFTW]

This is a very easy and simple fix.

So first of all I dont know if you are on KDE or on Gnome but it doesnt matter because this fix is universal for wayland and x11.
Before you start you have to check if the Xwayland package has been updated if not you may or may not have to compile the package from source and add a few pull requests. First I would recommend pulling it from the official repo https://github.com/timon37/xwayland and afterwards you want to compile with -O3.

Afterwards you want to compile it and restart your system, make sure that on reboot you open up the bios menu. In the bios menu you want to make sure that usb 3.0 has been turned off. Also XMP may or may not impact your keyboard changing. You can probably start the game now but if it happens that your keyboard changes again you should try to plug it in a different port because linux sometimes associates keyboard profiles per port and because source 2 uses SDL there has been a few bugs regarding keyboard layouts on certain ports so that may help you.

Hopefully you can enjoy this video game at a high satisfication.

 

[Lazarus Long]

I think an easy fix may be just deleting the Proton Prefix for Deadlock, then verify the game files and launch it. The Prefix will be the directory /path/to/steam/install/steamapps/compatdata/1422450

EDIT: Maybe I shouldn't call it a fix, because the game should support your default key mappings. So let's just say it's a workaround to to get Proton to realize yo changes the mapping.

 

[amenooto]

I think I found the main source of my issue. So my keyboard layout is set through my Wayland compositor config, and I had it set up so my primary layout is dvorak and my secondary layout is qwerty, and it's toggled with the ScrLk key. If I toggle the keyboard layout to qwerty, the game is still stuck on dvorak. Even if I toggle it to qwerty before launching steam, it still has that same issue. However, if I make my primary keyboard layout qwerty and secondary to dvorak, it works!!! So from what I'm seeing so far, it's almost like steam/proton/deadlock/whatever reads my primary keyboard layout and uses that. But I really don't want to have qwerty as my primary keyboard layout, so I'll see if I can make my Wayland compositor use a different keyboard configuration on all steam/proton windows, and see if that works smoothly...

 

[amenooto]

ok yeah so it seems like some Steam games on Wayland specifically uses your primary/first keyboard layout, and doesn't respect the currently selected one. So qwerty has to be set as the primary keyboard layout. I now have dvorak set as my secondary layout, and run a command immediately upon WM startup to switch to my secondary layout for convenience since I rarely ever use qwerty.