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Simple cookbook for xmodmap to xkb conversion for personal use



The uniform advice for a long time for everyone using the xmodmap
approach to configure their personal keyboard has been to convert to
xkb.  But the latter is extremely complex, and on top of that it has
terrible overall documentation (i.e., few howto's and cookbooks).
Furthermore, xmodmap continued to sort of work so I (and I think many
others as well) have stuck with xmodmap longer than we should have.

I have recently upgraded one of my production boxes to wheezy so I
thought this would be a good opportunity to convert a fairly short
.Xmodmap file I have been required to use with the edt mode of the jed
editor over the years to the equivalent xkb files.

I did follow links from
http://pkg-xorg.alioth.debian.org/howto/configure-input.html to
http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/InputHotplugGuide to
http://madduck.net/docs/extending-xkb/.  However, madduck's document
was conversational in style with exploration of a lot of extranous
dead ends he had tried so it was difficult to figure out from that
document the minimum needed to get a simple conversion of a personal
xmodmap file to a personal set of xkb files that did the same job.
Eventually after several days of screwing around I finally achieved
success so the edt mode for the jed editor works for me again.

As a result of this misadventure, I believe straightforward cookbook
documentation of the conversion from the personal xmodmap approach to
the personal xkb approach is required.  I have attached such cookbook
documentation which I am happy to donate to Debian.

I believe this cookbook documentation belongs on
http://pkg-xorg.alioth.debian.org/howto/configure-input.html (along
with a direct link to http://madduck.net/docs/extending-xkb/ as well).
However, when I approached Cyril Brulebois about an update to that
website with this cookbook, it turned out he was too busy with other
Debian matters to deal with it at the moment, but he did suggest:
"Feel free to resend your mail to debian-x@, maybe somebody else will
be able to pick it up, and merge things."

So that is what I have done, and I do hope somebody does pick this up
for that website because those Debian users who currently use a
personal xmodmap approach really do need a quick coobkbook of what to
do to get converted to the equivalent personal xkb approach.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Attachment: xmodmap_to_xkb.txt.gz
Description: cookbook documentation of a successful conversion of a modest .Xmodmap file to equivalent xkb files


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