Inconsistent keyboard across apps

Hi, I've been running Bazzite on my PC for a couple weeks now, and I have noticed some inconsistencies in keyboard mapping across the system. As of the time of this posting, I'm running Bazzite GNOME 42.20250817.

I live in Brazil, I'm a portuguese speaker and I have my system set for Brazilian Portuguese. My keyboard layout is US default, so I run it with a

us-intl

us-intl

us-intl

us-intl (specifically US International with Dead Keys) mapping , to be able to input accents.

For instance, on Firefox, other desktop or console apps, my keyboard behaves as expected. For instance, if I press

'

' then

, my output is an

á

á

á

á. If I press

'

' then

, my output is a

ç

ç

ç

ç. If i press

'

' then

v

v, my output is

'v

'v

'v

'v (for writing

I've

I've

I've

I've, for instance).

Now, if I do any of those on any window of the steam overlay (browser, friends, chat, etc., and whether on default steam or the big picture overlay), the dead keys are completely ignored. So, if I press

'

' then

, the output is just

. If I press

'

' then

, the output is just an

. This behaviour is not present on steam desktop nor on big picture mode.

And on Discord, for instance, if I press

'

' then

, my output is

á

á

á

á. But if I press

'

' then

v

v (for writing

I've

I've

I've

I've, for example), my output is

ǘ

ǘ

ǘ

ǘ.

Is it something I'm doing wrong, there's anything I have to do to make the experience consistent across all programs running on my PC? I'm a long-time linux user, but I've never had to fiddle around with keyboard settings because I have never ran into issues like that, so I don't really know where to start.

Can anyone help me with that?

Frings•8/18/25, 4:58 PM

I have a solution for you my friend, take a look at my message here https://discord.com/channels/1072614816579063828/1087140957096517672/1399878433575669830

CCrocDeluxe Hi, I've been running Bazzite on my PC for a couple weeks now, and I have notice...

Frings•8/18/25, 5:05 PM

The problem is by and large two: one is the incorrect UTF-8_EN-US layout in Linux (not bazzite specific) that has apparently been an issue for decades, which is what is giving you the wrong result for dead key combos when using an EN-US keyboard; the other is Flatpak access permissions causing some of the inconsistencies.

Likely the applications where the keyboard is loading right have their own keyboard setup/language processing features (that's the case for example for Firefox and Steam) that would not work elsewhere (such is on Steam Overlay, for some reason, but also other apps like Discord).

Let me know if you're able to fix it with my linked message, otherwise I'll give more detailed instructions later as I've had a more detailed guide in my drafts for ages now that I can get some time to complete

FFrings The problem is by and large two: one is the incorrect UTF-8_EN-US layout in Linu...

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 5:59 PM

Hey @Frings, thanks for all your help. I followed your guide and it worked like a charm for Discord and other Flatpak apps which were behaving strangely. But it didn't work at all for Steam's overlay... it also haven't made it worse, so I believe there's something else that I should look into for it.

Frings•8/18/25, 6:01 PM

Aye, glad it helped! Is there anything other than Steam Overlay not working? Could you try out one of the text apps that come with the system like kate or kwrite? (Another way is testing it in your 'start menu' search, assuming you're in KDE rather than GNOME)

Frings•8/18/25, 6:02 PM

I've had problems with Steam being finnicky either in the overlay and/or in Source games in the past, but we can just try to be sure whether it's that here too

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:03 PM

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that, sorry... I'm on GNOME.

Frings•8/18/25, 6:03 PM

No worries! I haven't tested this out myself in GNOME yet, but I reckon the spirit would be the same - any application that comes natively in the image rather than installed afterwards

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:04 PM

But yeah, it seems to be working well everywhere but on steam's overlay

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:04 PM

Maybe it has something to do with Bazzite's built-in script for launching Steam?

Frings•8/18/25, 6:06 PM

Gotcha! And, just in case... sorry but I'm an IT support person, so I have to ask: have you rebooted?

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:06 PM

lol, yeah, I did...

Frings•8/18/25, 6:06 PM

ahah alright great

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:06 PM

I'm also an IT guy, but I'm a networking guy

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:07 PM

So the reboot is already a default behaviour for me

Frings•8/18/25, 6:10 PM

I'm not sure whatever we see is Bazzite-specific, though I do remember I ultimately changed my system language from PT-BR back to English

and I have no problems since... I remember it definitely had some snags leftover. I'm assuming you're on Wayland, not X11?

Frings•8/18/25, 6:12 PM

And - not a Steam Deck image? (Steam Deck has its own language setup issues lol)

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:16 PM

Yeah, I'm running a Wayland session with GNOME as display manager. I have installed bazzite via the newest (at the time) ISO image from Bazzite's official site (bazzite-gnome-nvidia-open-stable-amd64.isobazzite-gnome-nvidia-open-stable-amd64.iso)

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:16 PM

I did install all possible upgrades via Bazzite's own "System Update" tool as well

Frings•8/18/25, 6:17 PM

perfect! an IT guy too indeed

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:20 PM

I mean... I think I know my way around linux since I've been using it for a few decades now, but I'm also just a regular user at the same time, because I have never tried to do anything much exotic with any linux install I ever ran.

Frings•8/18/25, 6:21 PM

hey you're already ahead of me! I've only recently moved over to linux, so maybe with our powers combined we can figure this out for ya lol

Frings•8/18/25, 6:21 PM

I'm thinking you could try to add the default keyboard in /usr/etc/environment/usr/etc/environment to see if it makes Steam pull up things proper

Frings•8/18/25, 6:21 PM

just checking to see which proper option we use, one sec

Frings•8/18/25, 6:24 PM

ok so that'd be adding

XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=en
XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=us(intl)

XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=en
XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=us(intl)

just be sure no typos and whatnot and each option in their own line

Frings•8/18/25, 6:25 PM

if you have anything other than a standard full keys kb, you can also add XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL= XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL= out of the list in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:26 PM

Hmmm... I'm unable to add anything to /usr/etc/environment/usr/etc/environment, even as root. Might be due to the fact that this is an immutable distro...

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:26 PM

But I was able to add it to /etc/environment/etc/environment

Frings•8/18/25, 6:26 PM

huh

I was able to over here as root, interesting

Frings•8/18/25, 6:27 PM

fair enough, that could still work - will just require logout and login

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:27 PM

I mean... I think I can remount the filesystem as read-write, but I'm not sure if changing anything there could break something elsewhere

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:27 PM

I'm not used to immutable distros

Frings•8/18/25, 6:27 PM

I'd say probably not worth it honestly!

Frings•8/18/25, 6:28 PM

sorry you might want to do the variant to =intl=intl instead of us(intl)us(intl)

Frings•8/18/25, 6:28 PM

us(intl) is the workman intl layout with dead keys, just intl oughtta be what we want

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:29 PM

yeah, makes sense

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:29 PM

well, let me try to reboot and see if everything still works...

Frings•8/18/25, 6:29 PM

here's hopin

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:32 PM

Yeah, nothing broken

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:32 PM

And the environment variables stuck

Frings•8/18/25, 6:33 PM

now for whether steam wants to listen

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:33 PM

yeah, let me launch a game to try it

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:34 PM

Meh, no luck still...

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:36 PM

But a friend, who knows a lot about wine, just told me to see if it might not be something related to the proton version I'm running... I'll try to switch from proton experimental to one of the stable ones...

Frings•8/18/25, 6:37 PM

ooooh, that's a good point

Frings•8/18/25, 6:38 PM

I've ran most of my games straight without proton so far so can't be of much help there - best way to confirm if it'd influence it would be to try to run a game natively and see if the behavior continues I suppose

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:39 PM

But no... just tried switching from proton experimental to proton hotfix and then to proton 9.0-4, but none of those did the trick

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:40 PM

I thought it could, because on my previous setup I ran steam with the compatibility layer set to proton 9

CrocDeluxeOP•8/18/25, 6:40 PM

And hadn't changed it from proton experimental since installing bazzite, that is

Frings•8/18/25, 6:41 PM

guh, annoying... might this be why I switched from Portuguese system language to English? let me do a switch back and see

Inconsistent keyboard across apps

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