Re: keyboard problem in console
On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:20:40PM +0300, Petteri Heinonen wrote:
> Hello all.
> Problems arise when I changed my hard drive. I copied (with tar)
> everything from my old drive to the new one, and made it bootable. It
> works all fine, except that all chracters are not correct, i.e. can't
> produce some characters by corresponding keys when I'm in console. In X
> I don't have any problems. I'm using scandinavian keyboard, so I think
> for some reason system thinks that I have US keyboard and produces wrong
> characters. What are most common reasons for keyboard problems and where
> could I find good information about how keyboards are handled?
>
Can't answer your question directly. I use a non-US kbd, too,
though, and have encountered problems from time to time. So, here is what I
think I know.
The console kbd is loaded from the /etc/init.d/keymap.sh script,
which is actually referenced from the symbolic link
/etc/rcS.d/S05keymaps.sh. On my system, that script loads the keyboard
definition file /etc/kbd/default.kbd.gz. In my case, that file is a Canadian
French keyboard layout. You can find other kbd maps in
/usr/share/keymaps/<arch>/<kbd-family>/. If you are not already familiar
with that shorthand, azerty, qwerty, and qwertz refer to the first six keys,
left to right on the top row of letter keys on the keyboard.
First, have a look at the /etc/init.d/keymaps.sh script to see which
keymap it is loading at boot. Once you know what file it is loading, have a
look at the file to see whether it defines a Scandinavian or US keyboard.
It might be handy to visually compare it to the US and Scandinavian keymaps
in /usr/share/keymaps/<etc>/ if you aren't familiar with how to read them.
If it is the US keymap, that is your problem.
You might have had a symbolic link from /etc/kbd/default.kbd.gz that
didn't survive the tar from the old to new drive, or something like that.
Once you have figured out which keymap you want from
/usr/share/keymaps/<blah>/, you can copy it to /etc/kbd/default.kmap.gz
(might want to mv the target to a backup filename first).
I don't know if this is the official way, or the best way, nor that
it won't blow up your computer or cause you to lose data. Just my thoughts.
HTH.
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