On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 07:34:48PM -0400, Steve Kleene wrote: > [At the risk of being annoying, I am re-posting this question.] > > I am repeatedly losing modifier-key function. > > I run an up-to-date Lenny system and use the window manager fvwm (2.5.26-1) > so that I can mostly work from the command line. I also have a virtual XP > machine (VM, VMware 1.06). > > If I use the VM for a few minutes (usually Photoshop, sometimes Acrobat), I > find that SHIFT, CTRL, and ALT no longer modify what I enter in the Linux > window. For example, CTRL-c, ALT-c, and SHIFT-c all just send `c'. The > modulator keys all still function in the VMware window. I have not > identified any particular sequence that causes the change. Shutting down the > VM doesn't fix it. Exiting fvwm and calling startx again does. When I ran > "dumpkeys -l" in the healthy and diseased states, the outputs were identical. > In my previous build (Etch + fvwm 2.5.18-3 + VMware 1.0.4), I never had this > problem. > > The questions ... > > 1. Any idea what causes this or how to prevent it? I'm not optimistic here. > 2. Can anyone suggest a command line that might restore the key functions so > that I wouldn't have to shut down the window manager? look into xmodmap. get the output of xmodmap both before and after the problem. set up an .xmodmaprc file and then run it whenever you have a problem with the VM borking them. You can run xmodmap without using any mod-keys directly. Though, how you'd get a command line to do that is another matter altogether. The really ugly solution is to have a cron job watching the output of xmodmap and rerunning it automatically when it gets broken, but that's just gross, IMO. A
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