Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 05:16:56AM EST, roberto wrote: On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com wrote: Basically says that your Alt key is mapped to AltGr. Try: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = Alt_R Ctrl+Dน actually it worked again after restarting the kdm manager thank you very much for your replies And check whether your Alt key is working again. CJ น Followed by a dash, xmodmap reads your commands form stdin. After ?remapping your Alt key, you need to hit the Control and the D keys ?simulataneously to tell xmodmap that you're done. i can say that it started to work again, but i say also that its behavior its strange: Alt_L: i can switch between applications, by Alt_L + Tab Alt_R + Tab: i cannot To undo the change and get back to where you were: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = ISO_Level3_Shift Ctrl-D OK. I see from another post that you are running KDE? I don't have a KDE system anywhere, but I vaguely remember something about a control center, was it.. where you could do some keyboard remapping in a GUI. Is there anything in there where you can tell KDE that you want the right Alt key to do something different? Do you normally use the plain US keyboard layout..? Is there a place in the KDE GUI where you can add keyboard layouts and make one the default? If so what is the current default? Any mention of something like Alternate US International or such..? Do you have gnome or maybe XFCE installed? If so, when on the login screen, you should have a pull-down menu that lets you switch to another desktop - you could check whether this Alt-R behavior only happens in KDE. If you don't have any other desktop installed, you could apt-get XFCE and see if the Alt key works as you expect. Since you stated that it happened without your wittingly doing anything that might affect the keyboard, and barring the unlikely but more sinister possibility that someone else did - IOW, that you have been rooted¹ - I can only think that something that you recently installed must have tried to do you a favor without letting you know. Since I very much doubt debian, especially stable, would do anything like that, I was wondering if maybe you could have installed software from anywhere outside official debian repositories, either via apt/aptitude pointing elsewhere via /etc/apt/sources.list, or a .deb you downloaded, a tarball, CVS, git, mercurial trees, or closed source stuff that comes with a Windows-styled 'installer'..? What I'm saying is that stuff like that does not just happen, especially since I think you stated that you run stable, aka 5.0. What is the output of this command? $ locale And that one: $ setxkbmap -v 10 -print Alt_L: i can access menus of applications Alt_R: i can ! Alt_L: i can access the i-th tab of firefox by Alt_L + i Alt_R: i cannot That's a cool trick.. unfortunately I mostly use Seamonkey and it appears to be only supported by FF. the actual output (after the above modifications) of xmodmap is: ~$ xmodmap xmodmap: up to 3 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lock Caps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x6d) mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Meta_L (0x9c) mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4 Super_L (0x7f), Hyper_L (0x80) mod5 Mode_switch (0x5d), Alt_R (0x71), ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c) You want: $ xmodmap -pk | less .. 113 0xffea (Alt_R) .. Says that my 113 is known by X as Alt_R, which I think is what you want. thanks again Not recommending the keycode thing as a solution. You really need to figure out what happened and caused the Alt key to start misbehaving, and undo those changes, or understand them and then decide how you should correct them. I have never even seen a PC keyboard with an AltGr key, so it's difficult for me to guess, but this article might refresh your memories and provide clues as to how this right Alt key apparently turned into an AltGr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key Unfortunately, I don't know enough about these issues to do much more than ask questions that might push you in the right direction. CJ ¹ Probably irrelevant, but a useful read anyway: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/win-UNIX-system_compromise.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org -- roberto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Sun, Dec 20, 2009 at 06:23:49AM EST, roberto wrote: On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 10:53 PM, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com wrote: Basically says that your Alt key is mapped to AltGr. Try: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = Alt_R Ctrl+Dน actually it worked again after restarting the kdm manager Now that you have a workaround, you probably want to find out what causes this in the first place and the way to correct it in your particular context. My guess is that there is a mismatch between your keyboard map and your expectations - where you want the key marked Alt on the right of your keyboard to be Alt and not AltGr. thank you very much for your replies NP .. [..] Please trim your replies to the list.. no sense posting back 100+ lines of stuff that's no longer relevant and that nobody will read anyway. CJ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com wrote: Basically says that your Alt key is mapped to AltGr. Try: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = Alt_R Ctrl+D? And check whether your Alt key is working again. CJ ? Followed by a dash, xmodmap reads your commands form stdin. After ?remapping your Alt key, you need to hit the Control and the D keys ?simulataneously to tell xmodmap that you're done. i can say that it started to work again, but i say also that its behavior its strange: Alt_L: i can switch between applications, by Alt_L + Tab Alt_R + Tab: i cannot Alt_L: i can access menus of applications Alt_R: i can ! Alt_L: i can access the i-th tab of firefox by Alt_L + i Alt_R: i cannot the actual output (after the above modifications) of xmodmap is: ~$ xmodmap xmodmap: up to 3 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lockCaps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x6d) mod1Alt_L (0x40), Meta_L (0x9c) mod2Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4Super_L (0x7f), Hyper_L (0x80) mod5Mode_switch (0x5d), Alt_R (0x71), ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c) thanks again -- roberto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 05:16:56AM EST, roberto wrote: On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Chris Jones cjns1...@gmail.com wrote: Basically says that your Alt key is mapped to AltGr. Try: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = Alt_R Ctrl+Dน And check whether your Alt key is working again. CJ น Followed by a dash, xmodmap reads your commands form stdin. After ?remapping your Alt key, you need to hit the Control and the D keys ?simulataneously to tell xmodmap that you're done. i can say that it started to work again, but i say also that its behavior its strange: Alt_L: i can switch between applications, by Alt_L + Tab Alt_R + Tab: i cannot To undo the change and get back to where you were: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = ISO_Level3_Shift Ctrl-D OK. I see from another post that you are running KDE? I don't have a KDE system anywhere, but I vaguely remember something about a control center, was it.. where you could do some keyboard remapping in a GUI. Is there anything in there where you can tell KDE that you want the right Alt key to do something different? Do you normally use the plain US keyboard layout..? Is there a place in the KDE GUI where you can add keyboard layouts and make one the default? If so what is the current default? Any mention of something like Alternate US International or such..? Do you have gnome or maybe XFCE installed? If so, when on the login screen, you should have a pull-down menu that lets you switch to another desktop - you could check whether this Alt-R behavior only happens in KDE. If you don't have any other desktop installed, you could apt-get XFCE and see if the Alt key works as you expect. Since you stated that it happened without your wittingly doing anything that might affect the keyboard, and barring the unlikely but more sinister possibility that someone else did - IOW, that you have been rooted¹ - I can only think that something that you recently installed must have tried to do you a favor without letting you know. Since I very much doubt debian, especially stable, would do anything like that, I was wondering if maybe you could have installed software from anywhere outside official debian repositories, either via apt/aptitude pointing elsewhere via /etc/apt/sources.list, or a .deb you downloaded, a tarball, CVS, git, mercurial trees, or closed source stuff that comes with a Windows-styled 'installer'..? What I'm saying is that stuff like that does not just happen, especially since I think you stated that you run stable, aka 5.0. What is the output of this command? $ locale And that one: $ setxkbmap -v 10 -print Alt_L: i can access menus of applications Alt_R: i can ! Alt_L: i can access the i-th tab of firefox by Alt_L + i Alt_R: i cannot That's a cool trick.. unfortunately I mostly use Seamonkey and it appears to be only supported by FF. the actual output (after the above modifications) of xmodmap is: ~$ xmodmap xmodmap: up to 3 keys per modifier, (keycodes in parentheses): shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e) lockCaps_Lock (0x42) control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x6d) mod1Alt_L (0x40), Meta_L (0x9c) mod2Num_Lock (0x4d) mod3 mod4Super_L (0x7f), Hyper_L (0x80) mod5Mode_switch (0x5d), Alt_R (0x71), ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c) You want: $ xmodmap -pk | less .. 113 0xffea (Alt_R) .. Says that my 113 is known by X as Alt_R, which I think is what you want. thanks again Not recommending the keycode thing as a solution. You really need to figure out what happened and caused the Alt key to start misbehaving, and undo those changes, or understand them and then decide how you should correct them. I have never even seen a PC keyboard with an AltGr key, so it's difficult for me to guess, but this article might refresh your memories and provide clues as to how this right Alt key apparently turned into an AltGr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltGr_key Unfortunately, I don't know enough about these issues to do much more than ask questions that might push you in the right direction. CJ ¹ Probably irrelevant, but a useful read anyway: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/win-UNIX-system_compromise.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 4:54 AM, Tony Nelson tonynel...@georgeanelson.com wrote: From your reply it is not clear, to me anyway, if you do have the console-tools package installed. The showkeys program is in that package. If you need to figure out how/what it is for, I suggest you try reading the man page. I got the same message (on Fedora 12) when running as a normal user. It works when run as root. well, running showkey as root from vt1 gives me: 0x64 0xe4 so the kernel recognizes the key but anyway it does not work under X (kdm is the manager for kde 3.5) -- TonyN.:' mailto:tonynel...@georgeanelson.com ' http://www.georgeanelson.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org -- roberto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 09:54:01PM +0100, roberto wrote: On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 4:54 AM, Tony Nelson tonynel...@georgeanelson.com wrote: From your reply it is not clear, to me anyway, if you do have the console-tools package installed. The showkeys program is in that package. If you need to figure out how/what it is for, I suggest you try reading the man page. I got the same message (on Fedora 12) when running as a normal user. It works when run as root. well, running showkey as root from vt1 gives me: 0x64 0xe4 so the kernel recognizes the key but anyway it does not work under X (kdm is the manager for kde 3.5) now try xev in an xterm and see what output you get for the alt key. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Andrew Sackville-West and...@farwestbilliards.com wrote: well, running showkey as root from vt1 gives me: 0x64 0xe4 so the kernel recognizes the key but anyway it does not work under X (kdm is the manager for kde 3.5) now try xev in an xterm and see what output you get for the alt key. i get the following output: KeyPress event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1, root 0x58, subw 0x0, time 167180255, (332,-16), root:(336,306), state 0x0, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1, root 0x58, subw 0x0, time 167180340, (332,-16), root:(336,306), state 0x80, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False thanks -- roberto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On Wed, Dec 09, 2009 at 04:49:29PM EST, roberto wrote: On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 10:40 PM, Andrew Sackville-West and...@farwestbilliards.com wrote: well, running showkey as root from vt1 gives me: 0x64 0xe4 so the kernel recognizes the key but anyway it does not work under X (kdm is the manager for kde 3.5) now try xev in an xterm and see what output you get for the alt key. i get the following output: KeyPress event, serial 31, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1, root 0x58, subw 0x0, time 167180255, (332,-16), root:(336,306), state 0x0, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x4c1, root 0x58, subw 0x0, time 167180340, (332,-16), root:(336,306), state 0x80, keycode 113 (keysym 0xfe03, ISO_Level3_Shift), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False Basically says that your Alt key is mapped to AltGr. Try: $ xmodmap - keycode 113 = Alt_R Ctrl+D¹ And check whether your Alt key is working again. CJ ¹ Followed by a dash, xmodmap reads your commands form stdin. After remapping your Alt key, you need to hit the Control and the D keys simulataneously to tell xmodmap that you're done. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
[Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
Original Message Subject: Re: Alt key not working Date: Tue, 8 Dec 2009 22:25:41 +0100 From: roberto robert...@gmail.com To: Wayne linux...@gmail.com References: 4bcde3e10912080934t4b85e591j23f729a6658d4...@mail.gmail.com 4b1e9851.2010...@gmail.com On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Wayne linux...@gmail.com wrote: roberto wrote: hello, i use debian 5.0 and recently i ran into the following strange malfunctioning: i do not know why, but the Alt key of the keyboard suddenly stopped working is there any way to get an idea of what is going on ? thank you very much in advance Have you checked out the console-tools package? The showkey program for instance. yes and i get ~$ showkey Couldnt get a file descriptor referring to the console From your reply it is not clear, to me anyway, if you do have the console-tools package installed. The showkeys program is in that package. If you need to figure out how/what it is for, I suggest you try reading the man page. Please to NOT send personal mail to people who attempt to help you. Responding to the list is the normal way to get help for yourself and other members of D-U. Wayne -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: [Fwd: Re: Alt key not working]
On 09-12-08 17:05:39, Wayne wrote: From: roberto robert...@gmail.com ... On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:17 PM, Wayne linux...@gmail.com wrote: ... Have you checked out the console-tools package? The showkey program for instance. yes and i get ~$ showkey Couldnt get a file descriptor referring to the console From your reply it is not clear, to me anyway, if you do have the console-tools package installed. The showkeys program is in that package. If you need to figure out how/what it is for, I suggest you try reading the man page. I got the same message (on Fedora 12) when running as a normal user. It works when run as root. -- TonyN.:' mailto:tonynel...@georgeanelson.com ' http://www.georgeanelson.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
