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Re: switch from ADB to linux keycodes ...



Sadly, this nasty business of the Caps-Lock key is done in the hardware on Powerbooks. This is causes me incredible frustration with my TiBook (especially after a long session in emacs...). I have been looking into a hardware solution (e.g., run a small wire from the control key to the caps lock key...), but so far I have not found a way to do without placing my keyboard in great risk (the membranes and contacts on the powerbook keyboards are particulary thin... so much so that tampering with them without destroying them will prove difficult).

I also tried some software solutions: I tried a "Conttol Lock", but hated it... I also hacked about in the kernel, and tried a solution where the Caps-lock key sent a control keypress, and the, whenever another key was pressed and released, the control release was sent. This had the effect of making the Cap-Lock key seem like a Control key for simple sequences (e.g., Control-C), but resulted in having to re-press the key for multi sequences (e.g., Control-x-s). There was also the problem of the way the events are sent, which you described; this made the above solution inconsistent, and therefore useless (i.e., sometimes you had to press and release the Caps-Lock, and other times thaat was optional... Ikk).

I have given up on any sort of usefull software solution, but I have not given up on a hardware solution.

Gregory P. Keeney
Mad Computer Scientist
gregory.p.keeney@lmco.com

NeilFred Picciotto wrote:

just made the switch to linux keycodes on my Pismo running woody with
benh's rsync kernel.  i've got the "keyboard_sends_linux_keycodes=1" thing
in the append line of my yaboot.conf, and i've got "powerpcps2" in my
XF86Config-4, so for the most part keys work, both in console mode and in
X.

but! "alt" is now the option key instead of the command key... searching the archive of this list, i see mentions of this fact, including
someone saying it's easy to switch that back.  but they didn't say *how*
to do so, only that it's easy...

am i correct in assuming that /etc/console/boottime.kmap.gz is the keymap
that's actually being used, so if i make changes to that, my changes will
persist through a reboot?
what do i need to change in that file to make the command key be alt
again?
how come the keycodes in that file don't line up with the keycodes shown
in xev?

oh, and on the subject of the keyboard, is it still the case that there's
no way to make Pismo's caps-lock key be control?  i see that in xev,
pressing the caps-lock key sends a KeyPress event immediately followed by
a KeyRelease event, and then release sends nothing; and then the next
press sends nothing, and release sends KeyPress immediately followed by
KeyRelease.  is this due to the actual hardware of the keyboard?  so there
will never be a fix for it?

thanks!

...derFlieN

NeilFred Picciotto
fred (at) derf (dot) net






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