Hello, Lee. On Fri, Jun 05, 2015 at 11:33:47PM +0200, lee wrote: > Hi,
> which keymap are we supposed to use for a keyboard that has 122 keys? I think you might have to roll your own. As a warning, this can't be done in a single hour. As a matter of interest, what are all the extra keys for? What legend is embossed upon them, and where are they, physically, relative to the "qwerty" part of the keyboard? My comments from this point on are about the console keyboard. I don't know much about X keyboards, though I do have a little utility, xfce4-xkb-plugin, in my XFCE which swaps from British to German layout at the click of a mouse. My console keyboard is an extensively enhanced version of a British layout, with the seven German letters on <AltGr>a/o/u/s, and many extra key combinations that are needed in Emacs, together with combinations for <Ctrl>arrow-keys, etc. > And which keyboard type are we supposed to specify? There's pc_102, > pc_105 and whatnot; is there such a thing as pc_122, too? I doubt it. Probably, you'll be just fine with pc_105. Try it! (Where is this set, by the way? I set mine to pc_105, but forgotton where I did it). > So far, I plugged the keyboard in (it's USB) and it has a layout I can > expect (which is kinda amazing), so I'm typing on it now. What I > want is a keyboard configuration that corresponds to the labels on the > keys (which is an US layout) as a starting point, and a way to switch > between the US layout and a layout adapted to German. Most of what I > type is in English, and the US layout is much better suited for > programming, so for the few cases I do need the extra keys required for > German, I want to be able to switch layouts by pressing a key. That > goes for both console and X11 --- my experience is that you first have > to get the keyboard set up correctly for the console before you have a > chance to get it to fully work with X11. I don't know of any way of switching the console keyboard as easily as you probably want. To switch layouts you need loadkeys (a utility program very close to the kernel). As I said, my workaround here is to put the German letters on <AltGr> combinations. It surprised me just how seldomly ä,ö,ü,ß are actually used in German text. You could put the string "loadkeys /home/lee/kbd-d.map.gz<CR>" (and a similar one for kbd-e.map.gz) on some difficult-to-type-accidentally key combination, with which you'd be able to change layouts from a bash command line. Just beware that the the same key layout is used by all the virtual terminals - there's no way of setting a key layout for just one VT. I would recommend you to start by copying a standard keyboard layout from /usr/share/keymaps/... (or dumping your current one with dumpkeys), then enhancing it. Read the man pages for loadkeys, dumpkeys, keymaps, etc. They are in package sys-apps/kbd. To find out what the keycodes are for "obscure" keys, use showkey. If you'd like a copy of my keyboard layout to help you on your way, just drop me a personal email. > The keyboard shows up as: "Unicomp Inc. Surf Ruffian USB 122 Keyboard v > 2.50". Xev shows that the function keys F13--F24 yield the same scan > codes as F1--F12. I still have a 105 key PS/2 keyboard plugged in, and > nothing is prepared for the 122 key keyboard, so that might limit what > scan codes are being seen. > BTW, this keyboard is awesome. It's just as if you had a Model M, but > still new, and there isn't anything better available new. I've been > using those for about 20 years now and wanted a new one since quite a > while, now finally managed to get a Unicomp ... Get one if you can; live > is too short for bad keyboards. :-) I have a Filco mechanical keyboard, which works well. Does your new keyboard need more desk space than a standard one? That would be a negative feature for me. -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
