Basic MAME question (keyboard controls)

[Nogginboink]

This question isn't about arcade controls specifically but I haven't been able to find help elsewhere. I'm hoping the community here will be generous enough to take pity on me.

I have installed MAME on 32 bit Ubuntu. I have ROMS that run properly. The problem I have is that I can get up, down, left, right arrows to work but not the action buttons. Alt and Ctrl do nothing. I can press TAB to bring up the in-game menu, and I can use the down arrow to highlight the various menu options, but I can't select any of the menu options; the ENTER key has no effect.

I have deleted and recreated all of the .cfg files and the mame.ini file and the problems persist.

I've tried both a regular USB keybaord and the wireless HTPC keyboard I'm using and have the same issues with both.

Can someone suggest to me whay boneheaded thing I might have done to get my computer into this state and how to fix it?

Thanks!

[Louis Tully]

.

[Nogginboink]

Default.cfg and mame.ini are attached. Thanks for your help!

[Louis Tully]

.