Re: xkb-data: Help needed for Macintosh keyboards
On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 02:03:33AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
[...]
> Mmm, altough i have only a US keyboard powerbook, i would willingly test this,
> as this is a major problematic point for mac keyboards.
>
> I have two questions though :
>
> 1) how do you detect you have a pmac keyboard, and not something else ?
> There are powerpc boxes with normal pc keyboards around (in fact, all still
> selling powerpc hardware is now of this kind, since apple left).
>
> 2) how do we test this, install the xkb-data package, and verify all keys
> still work ? Is there anything more to do ?
Ok, my previous mail missed all the needed informations, let's try again.
1. Where to get it?
================
xkb-data_0.8-8exp1_all.deb will be available at
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xkeyboard-config/
and on mirrors in few hours, but it can be found here now:
http://people.debian.org/~barbier/tmp/
2. What does it contain?
=====================
Its purpose is to provide XKB data files so that users can customize
their keyboards via xorg.conf or by calling setxkbmap/xkbcomp.
There is no autodetection, and even more, no processing when this
package is installed/removed.
PC layouts have been redesigned in XFree86 to be much more modular,
but Mac keyboards have not been modified then. I am trying to perform
the same changes so that Mac keyboards can be defined with the same
flexibility. In short, users should be able to put the model, layout,
variant and options they want in their xorg.conf, instead of keeping
their own copy of their preferred XKB file as seems to be the case now.
3. How to install it?
==================
Sid users can install it directly. As it has not been tested at all,
your X server may hang up or your keyboard may be fully broken, so do
not proceed like this unless you know what you are doing ;)
A less disruptive way is to unpack this package into a temporary
directory, and call setxkbmap from this directory:
$ dpkg -x xkb-data_0.8-8exp1_all.deb /tmp/xkb
$ cd /tmp/xkb/usr/share/X11/xkb
$ setxkbmap -print | xkbcomp - :0
(warnings can be ignored)
This option should also work for any Debian-based distribution with
X.Org 7.0.
4. How to test it?
===============
There are two different cases:
* If you use unmodified XKB files, you can run the command above,
it will load the new XKB definitions for your layout. Press
each key to see if their definition has changed, and also with
modifiers (in particular for non-US keyboards).
* If you use your own modified XKB file, there is not much to
test. But you can load your layout and see if this version
fixes the bugs which prevented you from using official files,
for instance:
$ setxkbmap -model macintosh -layout fr -print | xkbcomp - :0
If your keyboard seems to work as expected, try different software
and check that keyboard shortcuts work as usual.
5. What informations should be reported?
=====================================
Everything ;)
Basically I have to make sure that there are no regressions before
this package can be uploaded into unstable. This means that if a
layout did work previously, it should also work with this package.
If a layout was broken, well I guess that there is no harm fixing
it. As I know nothing about Mac keyboards, I will need all
informations you can provide:
* Mac model (ibook, g4, g5, etc)
* Mac keyboard (USB or not, country variant)
* xorg.conf options
* success or failure report?
* If possible, which console keymap you normally use
* If some keys have a different definition, please run
xkbcomp :0
after running the setxkbmap command above, and send the generated
server-0.xkb file with explanations of these differences.
I temporarily subscribe to debian-powerpc, so feel free to send
successful reports there, and please file bug reports against xkb-data
(with Tag: experimental) upon failure.
Thanks.
Denis
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