slow keyboard layout switching in gnome 3.6

Question

when I upgraded from gnome 3.4 to gnome 3.6 I realized that I could not change my keyboard layout using Alt+Shift anymore. so I installed gnome-tweak-tool and in Typing tab I selected Alt+Shift from Modifiers-only input sources.

now I can change my layouts using Alt+Shift but it is really slow ... what should I do ?

Answer 1

it is because now in gnome 3.6 gnome handles input sources instead of x. you can disable gnome from handling keyboard layouts :

gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.keyboard active false

then install qxkb and configure it for your own.

now x handles your keyboard layout and it is fast :).

Answer 2

On Ubuntu 18.04 (GNOME Shell 3.28.1) I also noticed lags when switching layouts through Alt+Shift. At 16.04 this was not.

I noticed that if I use the standard Super+Space combination, it works faster.

I found this solution: https://askubuntu.com/a/986629/766670

The bottom line is that Alt+Shift is an add-on combination of switching (slow), but the standard - fast.

Therefore, you can replace the key combination of the standard method with the desired one and switching will work faster:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source "['<Alt>Shift_L']"
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-input-source-backward "['<Shift>Alt_L']"

I hope this helps someone to avoid wasting time on finding a solution.