The issue started appearing only recently because localectl's behavior has changed. Currently, this command > localectl set-keymap $KEYMAP is in fact equivalent to both > localectl set-keymap $KEYMAP > localectl set-x11-keymap $XKBLAYOUT $XKBMODEL $XKBVARIANT $XKBOPTIONS where the XKB* options are implicitly "converted" (inferred) from the value of $KEYMAP. The "--no-covert" option disable this automatic "conversion" between console and X11 keymaps.