Some news of the maddening "space bar" issue which seems to affect French keyboard layouts.
The "Sharky fix" seemed to work all right, yet it was not enough for Kunbuntu (I have a fresh Kubuntu 4 platform).
After browsing the bug posts kindly given to me by Jens, I have come to the following fix, which works both on Ubuntu and Kubuntu and so far has the added bonus of apparently thwarting the "cursor shift" bug that I reported on other thread:
(/etc/X11/xorg.conf)
replace "XkbVariant" "oss"
with "XkbVariant" "latin9"
add below a full line:
##libfab fix:
Option "XkbOptions" "nbsp:none"
Actually the bug seems to arise from nbsp settings rather than from "oss" itself. On Kubuntu, commenting out "XkbVariant" "oss" was not enough, as it was with gnome Ubuntu.
I have not tried to check if, under gnome Ubuntu, it still is possible to preserve "XkbVariant" "oss" if the "nbsp:none" setting is added.
Another less intrusive method is to use setxkbmap (just check the man page) on a command line:
setxkbmap -option nbsp:none
is well enough under Kubuntu. You can possibly add:
-model pc 105 -layout fr -variant latin 9
if it is not enough.
Hope this helps.
Fab