pk stuff

go to System > Preferences > Keyboard > General

The controls under Repeat Keys are failing to properly adjust the timing of how fast keys are repeated when held down.

I filed under gnome, but a person there thinks its an xorg bug in ubuntu: https://bugzilla.gnome.org show_bug.cgi?id=550242 It has become quite clear that this is a problem with the xorg-evdev driver, and intrepids new hotplug architecture.

Here is a workaround for this:

Temporarily add the following to your xorg.conf:
Section “ServerFlags”
Option “AutoAddDevices” “off”
EndSection

Restart X, and you will be able to change the settings. Once changed, you can remove those lines from your xorg.conf (which is recommended since setting AutoAddDevices to off can interfere with your keyboard)