on-screen keyboard requires expert knowledge to launch in 14.10 Final Beta

Could you give me the result of the following command in the terminal?

ls -l /usr/bin | grep -i onboard

Maybe another approach, if you do not have any means at all to type anything: Could you please navigate with nautilus to the folder /usr/bin and check whether the following two files have their executable bit set?

The problem you describe seems to indicate that the executable bit on the onboard file is disabled. But I don't have any idea at the moment about how to enable the executable bit without typing anything. Even if you use the gui to remove and reinstall Onboard, the system requires you normally to enter an administrator password. (I don't know, whether it is possible to install Ubuntu in a way where the administrator does not have a password.)

Going by GUI here, due to the lack of keyboard. I'm not sure which two files you meant, but /usr/bin/onboard and /usr/bin/python* all are a+x.
I can start some programs from nautilus (such as xterm) just fine, but python programs always fire up gedit.

I'm fine with that behaviour of nautilus, to be clear, but at the very least the `On Screen Keyboard' setting under `Universal Access' ought to activate the on-screen keyboard. Unfortunately I don't have a keyboarded desktop utopic-unicorn in reach to check this against.

It seems that your nautilus is set to run it in gedit.

You might try the following: Go to the Edit menu of a nautilus window and choose Preferences. In the Behaviour tab, set the option "Executable text files" to "Ask each time."

This should solve your problem, as it will ask you whether you would like to run it, when you try to open /usr/bin/onboard.

Onboard has a desktop file for manual launch too. Try to locate its icon in dash, then drag it to the launcher bar for easier access. There might be an easier way, but I switched to the application lens, set the filter to local applications, expanded the list and scrolled down.

Can confirm, Onboard doesn't start right away when it is enabled in system settings. However, once that setting is checked, Onboard does seem to start up at login. Does that happen for you too, Christoph?

The problem seems to be that Onboard exits voluntarily because it thinks it is running in GNOME Shell. The autostart desktop file has "--not-show-in=GNOME" and that checks for the existence of the D-Bus name "org.gnome.Shell". That worked up to Trusty, but now in Utopic that name exists in Unity too...

Thanks for the quick and competent help!
Starting via dash worked fine, and I can now use the live image to repair my previous installation (which came from a slightly older Ubuntu).

The `it works after installing' approach may be correct but doesn't help when using the live image (hence I can't test), so I'd like to request that the `obvious' way to start onboard, i.e., via `Universal Access', be fixed for _at least for live_, so that future users don't run into the same issue.
(Feel free to change the bug title to `on-screen keyboard difficult to activate without expert knowledge', if that helps).

Thanks, Christoph, I wasn't aware that your were testing.
There's a fix in trunk now, but that one touches source code. For Utopic we could possibly modify onboard-autostart.desktop only. Might have a better chance to get approved at this late point in time. I'll discuss this with Francesco.

Bug #1389465 It also exists in Ubuntukylin

I have uploaded a snapshot of trunk containing a fix for this bug to our Snapshots PPA for utopic:
https://launchpad.net/~onboard/+archive/ubuntu/snapshots

This bug was fixed in the package onboard - 1.0.0-0ubuntu5

---------------
onboard (1.0.0-0ubuntu5) vivid; urgency=medium

  * Request for sponsorship (LP: #1378739)
  * debian/patches:
    - Add fix_autostart.patch (LP: #1376764)
 -- Francesco Fumanti <email address hidden> Wed, 08 Oct 2014 21:52:03 +0200

Hi,
I found this problem also occurs on Trusty. No effects when enabling "On Screen Keyboard" in Universal Access panel which is in unity-control-center.

Although comment #6 mentioned that it works in Trusty, but I found that the "org.gnome.Shell" actually exits in dbus..

I tried applying the patch (revno:1818 in trunk), and it can fix the problem.