How to use Alt+Shift to switch keyboard layouts?

A confirmed bug in Ubuntu 13.10 prevents users from switching layouts using combinations like Alt+Shift, Caps Lock, Ctrl+Shift etc.

The bug affects many people, its importance is set to "High", so we may expect that an official fix will be released soon. You can subscribe to notifications about this bug on launchpad.net, so that you receive an email when it's done.

Currently, a patch aimed at resolving this issue is being tested. By now it seems to work for most users, though certain problems remain. To install the patch, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:attente/modifier-only-input-switch
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

A system reboot was needed in my case to make it work (simple log out and log in may be sufficient).

Note: Originally, the patch was located at ppa:attente/1218322. If you have previously installed it from there, you can first purge it as follows

sudo ppa-purge ppa:attente/1218322

and then execute the three commands above.

Alternatively, you may consider using a combination containing a non-modifier key (a letter, digit, space): try, for instance, Alt+Shift+Space (this will work without installing any patches).

Note that the keyboard shortcuts for switching layouts still do not work on lock screen (it is a separate bug). If you are stuck on lock screen and unable to enter the password because of the wrong layout, simply click the language indicator icon on the right of the password field.

Many thanks to William Hua (attente) for his Modifier-only input switch PPA. As he said, he will keep the PPA up-to-date until a correct fix for this bug is released.

After I added this PPA to my list of sources using the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:attente/modifier-only-input-switch

and after I upgraded my system using:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

I could change the default Super+Space keyboard shortcut to Alt+Shift:

In Ubuntu 16.04 with Gnome 3.18, you can make it work using dconf Editor (should work for previous versions as well since the bug seems to be quite old):

1. Go to org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings
2. change switch-input-source (or switch-input-source-backward) to ['<Shift>Alt_L'] (or ['<Alt>Shift_L'])
3. Enjoy!