Keyboard

[Peter Hutterer]

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 06:21:34PM +0100, Thomas Worthington wrote:
> Hi,
>     I've been trying to convert my system to hald and I've some issues with
> my keyboard. The keyboard is an IBM model M 102-key with a British layout.
> 
> If I execute
> 
> setxkbmap -rules xorg -model pc102  -layout gb -option ctrl:nocaps
> 
> then none of the arrow, home, delete etc. keys work. But if I do
> 
> setxkbmap -v -rules xorg -model evdev -layout gb -option ctrl:nocaps
> 
> then the system responds with
> 
> Trying to build keymap using the following components:
> keycodes:   evdev+aliases(qwerty)
> types:      complete
> compat:     complete
> symbols:    pc+gb+inet(evdev)+ctrl(nocaps)
> geometry:   pc(pc104)
> 
> I don't have 104 keys so I tried
>
> setxkbmap -v -rules xorg -model evdev -geometry pc102 -layout gb -option
> ctrl:nocaps
> 
> And that responds with:
> 
> 
> Trying to build keymap using the following components:
> keycodes:   evdev+aliases(qwerty)
> types:      complete
> compat:     complete
> symbols:    pc+gb+inet(evdev)+ctrl(nocaps)
> geometry:   pc102
> Error loading new keyboard description
> 
> and appears to do nothing.
> 
> 
> So that's the first issue: how do I get the system to recognize that I've
> got a 102-key keyboard.

unless you want to paint pretty pictures of your keyboard it doesn't really
matter which geometry is picked. and IIRC except br and jp all layouts
default to pc104 now for that reason.

with evdev, the "model" is partially obsolete since it's now standardised by
the kernel.
 
> The second issue is a more general one. Because I have only 102 keys, I've
> put together quite an unusual keymap which I've applied with xmodmap up
> until now. The most important mapping are:
> 
> AltGr produces Meta_R and Mod3
> Alt produces Alt_L
> Print produces Multi_kry
> Scroll Lock produces Mode Switch
> Pause produces Caps Lock
> Caps Lock produces Control (this one I can do!)
> 
> How do I get the xorg keyboard driver to produce these same mappings?

xkeyboard-config has the mappings that allow you to specify "ctrl:nocaps"
and the map then filled in with the right keysyms. Your chanages For any
changes you want to add, it's best to write it up as options.

Though eventually we should get setxkbmap and friends to read from $HOME as
well, there's plenty of custom mappings that probably shouldn't be in the
normal rules.
 
Cheers,
  Peter