ibm 101-key keyboard keymap

[Brian Kimball <bfk@footbag.org>]

Hi, I think I may have spotted an X-related bug here.  I have an IBM
101-key keyboard.  During the setup of potato's xserver-svga I chose the
1st keyboard listed, something like "generic 101-key pc keyboard".  I
ended up with an XF86Config file with these as the only keboard related
options:

    Protocol    "Standard"
    XkbKeymap   "xfree86(us)"

With these options I end up with the following entries in my keymap and
modifier map:

keycode  64 = Alt_L
keycode 113 = Alt_R
keycode 115 = Meta_L
keycode 116 = Meta_R

mod1        Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x71)
mod4        Meta_L (0x73),  Meta_R (0x74)

Of course, I don't have any Keys that produce keycodes 0x73 and 0x74
since I have a 101-key keyboard.  But because Meta keys are in mod4,
apps like Emacs think I have valid Meta keys (or so I assume).  This is
a problem, because they won't accept Alt as an alternative when the
think I have Meta keys.  As soon as I cleared mod4 they were happy with
just plain Alt.

Not happy with a broken keymap that I had to fix with xmodmap, I
uncommented the "default" keyboard setup in my XF86Config, so it looked
like this:

# These are the default XKB settings for XFree86
    XkbRules    "xfree86"
    XkbModel    "pc101"
    XkbLayout   "us"
    XkbVariant  ""
    XkbOptions  ""
#    XkbKeymap   "xfree86(us)"

I also figured that this should have been what my config was in the
first place, since I told the xserver-svga setup program that I have a
101-key kb.  Well, this gave me the following keymap and modifier map:

keycode 64 = Alt_L Meta_L
keycode 113 = Alt_R Meta_R

mod1         Alt_L (0x40),  Alt_R (0x71)

This seems to work with finicky apps like Emacs, but according to jwz's
xkeycaps it is invalid and produces undefined behavior (because keys
with different semantics are bound to the same keycode, or something
like that).  It's also an annoying kludge because I have no Meta keys,
but with this setting apps like Sawmill think I'm hitting Meta (which is
somewhat understandable given the above keymap but annoying
nonetheless).

So is there a bug somewhere in the setup program, because it causes X to
think I have Meta keys when I told it I didn't?
Is jwz right?
Should I have even bothered this list?
Am I on crack?

Thanks.  And note that since I'm not a debian X developer I'm not on
this list, so if you need more info or if you want to flame me you'll
have to cc: me.

-- 
Brian Kimball