In the latest versions of xorg keyboard and mouse settings are handled not by the xorg.conf file, but by HAL. (This assumes you built it with HAL)

As far as keyboards are concerned HAL will assume that you have a US layout standard keyboard. Setting a XkbLayout as stated in the book will be ignored. You have to tell HAL by supplying a file, for instance to set a UK (GB) keyboard on a pc105 model:

cat > /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-x11-input.fdi << "EOF"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
   <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.keys">
    <merge key="inout.x11_options.XkbModel" type="string">pc105</merge>
    <merge key="input.x11_options.XkbLayout" type="string">gb</merge>
  </match>
 </device>
</deviceinfo>
EOF

The advantage of this is that it works for hot plugged keyboards too. Similar methods needed for mouse setting.