Very Computer

1. 2.2.18: a total loss (at least for me); keyboard doesn't work anymore.

 intentionally use this provocative subject to attract attention on
this, in my opinion, fundamental topic: the correct working of keyboard.
I have an iMac rev.B with Italian usb qzerty keyboard. Before I was
using kernel ben_2.2.17pre20, and I modified the keyboard maps (both for
the console and for X; the ones you can find in
/usr/lib/kbd/keymaps/mac/ and /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/symbols/macintosh/)
to respect my keyboard layout. Now I got and compiled 2.2.18 and I am
lost: the first time I booted it I found I had completely lost the
correspondence between buttons and outputs; using 'showkey' and 'xev' I
noticed that the keycodes were completely different from the previous
ones. Following a suggestions given to me in comp.os.linux.powerpc
newsgroup I went to
http://home.munich.netsurf.de/Franz.Sirl/inputppc.html and saw that now
(at least for the console) you don't need anymore mac-* maps, but you
have to use standard linux keymaps. So I did, and for the console things
went better, apart from the modifications I have to do to adapt these
maps to Italian layout. But the big problem is with X: I'm using Xpmac
(I tried to start XFree 4.0 I compiled with previous kernel, but didn't
succeeded in it) and, after a lot of tries to understand how it loads
the keycodes file (in my situation it is
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb/keycodes/macintosh) to change it with another one
(but which?) I write down all the keycodes of my keyboard I got with
'xev' to manually modify this file. With my big surprise I have found
that different buttons on my keyboard give the same keycode (for example
8, 2, 4, 6, on the keypad and the up, down, left, right arrows) and so I
don't really know how to do. Besides this, if I press the space bar the
cursor starts a run on the shell and I have to press another button to
stop it. So I have come back to previous kernel and I'm waiting for
better days.
Just a consideration: in my opinion (and not only: I report some
observations made by Italian wanting-to-use-linux-on-mac people) one of
the fundamental thing to increase the number of linux users and not to
restrict its use to an elite is to have a simple way to obtain one's own
keyboard working.
Bye.
  Rick

--
"This is the crisis I knew had to come
 destroying the balance I had kept
 turning around to the next set of lives
 wondering what will come next."
Joy Division, "Passover"

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