https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=966799
--- Comment #8 from Adam Williamson awilliam@redhat.com --- Up until F18, this would have been disguised by system-setup-keyboard , which used that kbd-model-map data; both anaconda and s-c-k configured the keyboard through s-s-k, so when you set a keyboard layout with one of those, a model would always have been explicitly written into /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-system-setup-keyboard.conf . Even on the F14 live image, a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-system-setup-keyboard.conf which specifies the pc105 model is present. So, my theory now is that at the very bottom of the stack, the X server has been defaulting to pc104 geometry all along, and somehow that XKB_DFLT_MODEL setting in the X server isn't affecting that, but we never really noticed in Fedora up till Fedora 18 because s-s-k disguised it.