[ale] Weird keyboard behavior

[Tom Freeman]

Sadly, I don't have a clue about how to trouble shoot this, although I've 
got two workarounds available to me. Also, it just started yesterday 
before software updates.

My most common desktop use is Mate under Ubuntu 15.04 on this machine. I 
also have LXDE, Cinnamin, and whatever Ubuntu's default is.

In any event, I logged into Mate successfully, and started an update as 
the first project of the day. No joy, as the system rejected my password 
(that it had just accepted 40 seconds earlier! I bailed, started a 
terminal so I could see what was being typed: instead of "uiop" I was 
getting the embedded number pad "456*" (the rest of the number pad keys 
work the same way). Using fn-<key> returned normal characters, but that 
isn't exactly a great thing... Since I could login normally, I figured the 
problem isn't hardware, so I switched desktops. LXDE, Cinnamin both worked 
correctly. No reboots involved either, if that helps. Plugging in a USB 
keyboard works a treat, but having to carry an extra keyboard could become 
awkward.

I have also looked at the Mate Keyboard setup, and have not found anything 
which strikes my attention when compared to the other desktop setups.

I can work in Mate with a USB keyboard just fine - better than the built 
in keyboard since I still drag across the touchpad on this machine (after 
years of trying not to). The alternate workaround is to drop Mate from use 
for a time, which will at least help keep my desktop usage closer to 
flexible.

I'm buffaloed on how to continue to diagnose this one. Anybody have a clue 
that they would care to beat me with??

To the whole group, thank you for the use of your bandwidth!