Re: xmodmap, xkb and XF86Config

[Alexander Gottwald <alexander dot gottwald at informatik dot tu-chemnitz dot de>]

On Tue, 23 Oct 2001, Laurent Pinchart wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I've read a lot of questions on this list asking about support for a 
> foreign keyboard, and a lot of answers about xmodmap.
> 
> As I've never used xmodmap on my Linux box, I was wondering what the 
> difference is between xmodmap and the "XkbRules", "XkbModel" and 
> "XkbLayout" option in /etc/X11/XF86Config.
xmodmap just sets a keyboard configuration. xkbcomp (to which the Xkbxxx
rules apply) compiles such a configuration from some data given (eg.
keyboard type, keyboard language...)

> All the keyboard layout files in /etc/X11/xkb in Cygwin seem unused. 
> What is their purpose ? Is there a way to configure a foreign keyboard 
> using an XF86Config-like setup, or to generate an xmodmap file from 
> those keyboard descriptions ?

you can try starting XWin with the extra parameters "+kb -xkbmap fr" 
This should enable the xkb extension and sets the language to french
You can use any language code you want. Please report, if it works for
you.
 
> I'm sure that I'm not the only user to be puzzled about this. Maybe it 
> would be worse adding this in the FAQ.

If I'd got feedback from any user who asked me about this feature and
said "It worked/worked after changing this and that", I'd prefer it
as standard way. But since I only got report when it didn't work and
noticed myself that on some hosts it doesn't work correctly, I don't
propagate it as a working solution.

bye
	ago 
-- 
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